Season Sponsor:   Performance Sponsors: Tom and Nancy Laurie In Memory of Margaret Phillips

Pre-Concert Talk with Rick Phillips Friday July 9, 2010 7:15 pm Gambrel Barn Free Admission with Concert Ticket Join host Rick Phillips for a look at one of history’s greatest and grumpiest composers. OPENING NIGHT Friday July 9, 2010 8:00 PM Gambrel Barn Ticket price: $56 Nathalie Paulin, soprano Jennifer Enns Modolo, mezzo soprano Eric Shaw, tenor Peter McGillivray, bass Elora Festival Singers Toronto Mendelssohn Singers Elora Festival Orchestra Noel Edison, conductor

Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Opus 92 – Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
1. Poco sostenuto – Vivace
2. Allegretto
3. Presto – Assai meno presto
4. Allegro con brio

Intermission

Mass in C Major, Opus 86
1. Kyrie
2. Gloria in excelsis
3. Credo
4. Sanctus
5. Benedictus
6. Agnus Dei

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) was one of the giants of musical composition, a fact of which he was very well aware. As a man of genius, he had no time for social niceties, and did not suffer fools (i.e. just about everybody else) gladly. Indeed, the poet Goethe described him as “completely untamed”. But yet many people recognized his brilliance, and were able to put up with a considerable amount of his grumpiness. One of Ludwig’s great patrons, the Archduke Rudolph, declared that the usual rules of court etiquette did not apply to Beethoven.

Beethoven’s exuberant Symphony No.7 comes from a difficult time in his life. His hearing was now in serious decline, which fueled his major depressions. He was also frequently suffering from headaches and bad fevers. That he was able to create such a joyous work amidst such gloom is nothing short of miraculous.

Unlike many of his works, Symphony No.7 was immediately successful. The enthusiastic audience demanded that the second movement be repeated at the premiere in 1813, and the work has remained a favourite with the public. Praise was not unanimous; Sir Thomas Beecham complained “What can you do with it? It’s like a lot of yaks jumping about!” But we will leave the last word to Richard Wagner, always a harsh critic of anyone’s work but his own. Wagner called the Symphony the apotheosis of the dance. “If anyone plays the 7th, tables and benches, cans and cups, the grandmother, the blind and the lame, the aged, the children in the cradle, all fall to dancing.”

Beethoven was never a friend of the Church, and consequently wrote very little religious music. The Mass in C was commissioned in 1807 by Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, who had been Haydn’s great patron. The Prince was not sufficiently enthusiastic about the Mass, causing a furious Beethoven to storm out of his chapel, never to return. Indeed the Mass is quite difficult, and is rarely performed even today. But it is considered to be of the highest quality, a rare sacred jewel among the wealth of Beethoven’s secular creations.

Jurgen Petrenko