Beethoven & Schubert is sold out

Giordano Bellincampi conductor
Michael Endres piano

Mendelssohn Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage
Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4
Schubert Symphony in C major “The Great”

Saturday 12th May, 7.30pm
Air Force Museum of New Zealand, Wigram

Between 1828 and 1833, Mendelssohn seems to have been fascinated, almost obsessed by the sea. His imagination, fuelled by reading two poems by the German poet Goethe, The Calm At Sea and The Prosperous Voyage, created a vivid musical painting of a becalmed ship beneath a windless sky. A slight breeze stirs the sails and the vessel begins to move – slowly at first then faster as the wind builds. Land is sighted and the ship eventually sails triumphantly into port, her voyage over.

The private house concert in March 1807 must have been quite an evening as the home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz resounded to not one but three of Beethoven’s major compositions. The Fourth Piano Concerto was performed alongside The Coriolanus Overture and the Fourth Symphony – a surfeit of musical riches for the aristocratic audience. The following year the public had its chance to hear the concerto performed by the composer. It was an immediate success, described by one contemporary critic as ``the most admirable, singular, artistic and complex ever written by Herr Beethoven...’’

Making his debut performance with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra is the internationally renowned Michael Endres.

Considerable detective work surrounds Schubert’s last completed symphony. In March 1824, he wrote that he was preparing to compose a grand symphony. True to his word, the framework for the new work had been sketched in by 1825 with the score completed the following year. But apart from an unofficial performance in 1827, the dying Schubert never heard the work played in a full public performance The entire work was played publicly in Leipzig in 1839 when it was hailed by Robert Schumann as the greatest instrumental work since Beethoven’s death.