The Fifth's Trombones

Returning to the subject of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for a moment, another of the noteworthy aspects of the piece is the fact that in the fourth movement, Beethoven adds several instruments to the orchestral mix that don’t play in the first three movements: a piccolo, a contrabassoon, and three trombones. Many reference books say that Beethoven’s Fifth was the first symphony to feature trombones. It certainly is the first symphonic work still in the standard repertoire to include trombones, and it may have been the first such work performed publicly. But there was one slightly earlier symphony with trombones that likely beat Beethoven to the punch by several months: the Symphony in E-flat major by Swedish composer Joachim Nikolas Eggert (1779-1813). Eggert’s active composing career lasted barely a decade before his death of tuberculosis at age 34. But his catalog of works – including two operas, nine string quartets, a number of ceremonial cantatas, and four completed symphonies – had a fairly significant effect on the development of Swedish music.

The third of those four symphonies, which features a trio of trombones, was completed sometime in April or May 1807, as Beethoven was hard at work on the Fifth. On May 4, 1807 Eggert presented the score of the E-flat major Symphony to the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, a token of appreciation for having elected him as a new member. Ten days after that the Swedish Royal Court Orchestra presented an all-Eggert concert, led by the composer himself – Eggert’s public debut as a conductor – at which two of his symphonies was performed. There is some debate as to which of his symphonies were heard, but chances are good that the E-flat Symphony was one of them. Therefore his work was heard by an audience fully eighteen months before Beethoven’s Fifth.

Some of the above information came from this page, which provides much more information on Eggert and the trombone question.

Why I do what I do

I have been thinking a lot lately about why I do what I do with my life. Maybe it’s because I’m turning 40 in October or maybe it’s because I’m wired to analyze every choice and decision I make or maybe it’s because life is moving by at what feels like a ridiculously high speed. Whatever the reason, it’s been on my mind.

For me, this starts with the question of why do I play music. The answer ranges from: because I can, to because I don’t know what would fill my life if I didn’t, to because it’s something I do fairly well, to because it makes people’s lives better and more complete.

My wife Andrea (Andrea Lenz—RCO principal oboist) and I often hear from people that we are “so lucky to get to do what we love.” Some days I do indeed love what I do, and some days “a job is a job” and I would rather stay at home with a glass of wine and a good book than go to the 10 millionth rehearsal of my life. When I’m feeling my very best about what I do (both playing music and managing an orchestra), it is because the results cause other people to be happy.

I read today that the polar ice cap may well be gone in 5 years. Some say the economy is in such a bad state the stock market might crash by this autumn. Author Jerrod Diamond says that if we on this globe don’t change our rate of growth and consumption, first-world conditions on the planet will be gone in 30 to 50 years. This cloud of depressing possibility makes what I do all the more important. If even for only a couple of hours at a concert, music (or at least the emotional residue) is entirely good. It is a miracle that an orchestra of 40 people can play music by a person who has been dead for a century and through a blend of various sounds have a relevant and life-touching product to offer.

When Joan Tower came to Reno to conduct her piece “Made in America,” in October of 2005 one of the things she really appreciated about the RCO was that the players weren’t just phoning it in. We sat on the edges of our seats and engaged with the music and played at a respectably high level. She talked about some “big city” giggers who might play the notes perfectly, but who spend the whole rehearsal looking at their watches and not really caring about the music. This really bothered her and it is something I know I need to continually guard against. It is so easy for all of us to become jaded and lose that idealistic Pollyanna mindset that we used to have. It is a daily challenge to do the things we do for the right reasons. I know for me that when I get frustrated with others and the pettiest parts of my humanity rear their ugly heads, I am the least happy and I am also the least productive and accomplish the least. When I do the right things for the right reasons, that’s when everything clicks, and I make the most of the fleeting days.

So what’s better—a perfect performance or one that has technical flaws but touches people in a profound way? When I play for myself, the honest answer is usually the former. But the truth is that it’s the latter. That’s not a cop out or a license for people to accept out of tune, sloppy, or unprepared playing. (Goodness knows that an orchestra manager or conductor who is satisfied with a mediocre product shouldn’t be in the position) But in a world with troubles galore and disconnected people and broken relationships and litigiousness and anger and sadness and isolation and loneliness and selfish/tit-for-tat meanness, we music makers have an opportunity and an almost sacred responsibility to bring beauty and joy and happiness and thought provocation to the audience and each other, and in the live concert setting create an incubator of goodness that might transcend the concert hall and move out the doors and into a world that desperately needs it. When I fail to remember this and to be as noble as I can, it not only eats me up, but it does nothing for the world.

The premiere of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

I’ve been spending much of this week working on the program for the RCO’s season-opening concerts on September 20 and 21. As usual, I wrote much too much for the program notes, and had to prune those carefully crafted thoughts, those veritable pearls of wisdom and insight (!)

By the way, we’ll be posting the program notes at the RCO website in the next week or two. Not everyone has a chance to read them at the concert, in the dark. So this way you can take a look at them at your leisure, should you desire to, and prepare yourself for what should be a fabulous concert.

A good portion of what ended up disappearing from the notes in the editing process concerned the concert at which Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was premiered. It was a remarkable event in music history. A bit of background: Beethoven wrote the Fifth Symphony over the years 1804 to 1808. This was the heart of what is generally looked on as the most productive period of his composing career. In fact, he interrupted work on the Fifth several times to write other great masterworks – the first version of the opera Fidelio, the Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6, the Violin Concerto, the Piano Concerto No. 4, the three “Razumovsky” string quartets, and the “Appassionata” Piano Sonata, among others.

But concert life was not then what it is today. There were comparatively few full-time orchestras, and even a celebrity like Beethoven couldn’t count on performances of every new work he produced. Quite often, composers had to arrange for concerts themselves, hiring the hall and orchestra, and hoping that they could make some money off the ticket sales. Mozart, for instance, famously created his great final piano concertos for subscription concerts he put on himself.

So by 1808, Beethoven had quite a backlog of new music, and he decided to put on a concert at which several of his newest large-scale works would get their premiere performances. On December 22, 1808, the Theater an der Wien in Vienna played host to a concert at which Beethoven conducted the following program:

Symphony No. 6
Concert aria "Ah! perfido"
The “Gloria” from the Mass in C Major
Piano Concerto No. 4 (with Beethoven as soloist)
Intermission
Symphony No. 5
The “Sanctus” and “Benedictus” from the Mass in C Major
A solo piano improvisation played by Beethoven
Choral Fantasy

Either half of this program would make for a decent-sized concert today. But the fact that all this music – all of it receiving world premiere performances! – was heard in one marathon concert of over four hours rather boggles the mind.

There are quite a few other little details about this performance that add to its reputation. For one, only one rehearsal preceded the concert. And Beethoven, who was to conduct the concert, wasn’t allowed into the rehearsal! It seems that a month or two before, Beethoven had been involved in some performance at a church at which he threw a little tantrum and accidentally knocked over an altar boy holding a candle. The orchestra members, outraged at his behavior, insisted that he not lead the rehearsal. So Beethoven had to sit in a separate room to listen, and the concertmaster would occasionally leave the stage and run over to this other room to get Beethoven’s comments from him.

The Theater an der Wien that was the site of the big concert had opened only seven years before, and had already been the site of other Beethoven premieres, including Fidelio and the Second and Third Symphonies. But remember that we are talking about just three days before Christmas here and it was just a little, well, freezing out. So we have a very cold audience, sitting for four and a half hours or so listening to entirely new, and rather substantial and complex, music played by a community orchestra on just one rehearsal.

Then a soprano soloist pulled out at the last minute and needed to be replaced. To top it all off, the Choral Fantasy that concluded this marathon hadn’t received any rehearsal at all, and a few minutes into their performance the musicians became confused about the repeats. Chaos ensued, and the performance ground to a halt and had to be restarted.

It is no surprise that Beethoven’s assistant Anton Schindler, who attended and left one of the few accounts of that evening that has come down to us, wrote that “the public was not endowed with the necessary degree of comprehension for such extraordinary music, and the performance left a great deal to be desired.”

I don’t think it’s too great of an exaggeration to say that the RCO’s performances of the Fifth on September 20 and 21 will be more fully prepared, and sound rather better, than the performance at that 1808 premiere.

Now Playing...

Every now and then, just for the fun of it we’ll be letting you know what compact discs have been getting a lot of playing time with RCO staff. Here’s my recent list, in no particular order:

-- Terry Riley: The Cusp of Magic (Kronos Quartet; Wu Man, pipa) – Nonesuch
-- Bedrich Smetana: Orchestral Music (Janacek Philharmonic conducted by Theodore Kuchar) – Brilliant Classics
-- Big Blue Ball (Various artists) – Real World
-- Geirr Tveitt: Piano Concerto No. 4 “Aurora Borealis” (Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Bjarte Engeset; Havard Gimse, piano) – Naxos
-- Piotr Tchaikovsky: Symphonies (Philadelphia and Philharmonia Orchestras conducted by Riccardo Muti) – Brilliant Classics
-- The Rough Guide to Bollywood (Various artists) – World Music Network
-- Sigur Ros: Takk… (Geffen Records)
-- Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 (Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Carlos Kleiber) – Deutsche Grammophon
-- Trio Mediaeval: Folk Songs (ECM)
-- Heitor Villa-Lobos: Rudepoema and other piano works (Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano) – Hyperion

And for the sake of completeness, here are a couple of recently released music-related DVDs that have impressed me greatly:

-- “O Thou Transcendent”: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Tony Palmer Films)
-- Leos Janacek: From The House Of The Dead (Olaf Bär, John Mark Ainsley, Erik Stoklossa et al; Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez – Deutsche Grammophon)