Tomorrow Saturday at 19.30, the Fundación Excelentia presents the Orfeón Donostiarra and the Orquesta Clásica Santa Cecilia, conducted by Fuad Ibrahimov, who will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 52, at the Auditorio Nacional de Música de Madrid. They will be accompanied by soprano Anna Stylianaki and mezzo Claudia Marchi.
According to Wikipedia, the premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93 “took place on 27 February 1814, at a concert in Vienna’s Redoutensaal, at which the Seventh Symphony (which had been premiered two months earlier) was also performed. Beethoven was becoming increasingly deaf at the time, but nevertheless conducted the premiere. Reportedly, ‘the orchestra largely ignored his ungainly gestures and instead followed the violinist concertmaster’. Johann Mäzel joined Beethoven’s other friends at a farewell dinner for the composer, who was about to leave on a journey in late spring 1812. Beethoven was in one of his amused moods, which he himself described as ‘unbuttoned’. At the party, Mäzel described his metronome, with which he hoped to provide composers with a way of indicating the tempo accurately and to give performers an aid to regular performance. Beethoven gleefully applauded the idea and immediately launched into a seemingly spontaneous song based on the “ta ta ta ta” of Mäzel’s instrument. The others in the audience joined in to turn the song into a rondo. This inconsequential melody became part of the second movement of the eighth symphony, which Beethoven was working on at the time. The melody is accompanied by a suggestive metronome accompaniment.
Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, op. 52, called ‘Lobgesang’ (or ‘Hymn of Praise’), is a choral symphony written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. The composer’s description of the work was as “a symphony-cantata on words from the Holy Bible, for soloists, choir and orchestra”. Tickets can be purchased at this link.
