Andris Nelsons leaves on a Beethoven high

The Latvian conductor is leaving the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he made his name. He is leaving with some reluctance, having apparently asked the Boston Symphony if he could retain a formal attachment to his previous band. Boston said no.

So Andris is launchuing his final season with a six-day Beethoven cycle, the biggest high music can buy.

Press release below:

2014-15 is Andris Nelsons’ seventh and final season as music director of the CBSO. The symphonies of Beethoven are one of the greatest journeys that any conductor and orchestra can take together. Nelsons opens the 2014-15 season with his critically acclaimed Beethoven Symphony Cycle, last performed in Birmingham by the CBSO during the 2012-13 season. Back by popular demand, all nine Beethoven Symphonies will be performed over six days.  These concerts come immediately after the same team will have performed this cycle in the composer’s home town of Bonn as part of Beethovenfest.

On 16 September the CBSO begin the Beethoven symphony cycle with a performance of the first three symphonies. Symphony No. 1, dedicated to an early patron of the composer, had influences of the composer’s predecessors Haydn and Mozart but began to show characteristics that marked it uniquely as Beethoven’s work. The Second Symphony was written in four movements at a time when Beethoven’s deafness was becoming more pronounced. The movements varied in musical style with the second one, influenced by folk music and the pastoral, presaging Symphony No. 6. The concert closes with Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica’ which expressed both the classical style of eighteenth-century compositions and also defining features of the romantic style used in nineteenth-century orchestral composition.

The second concert on the afternoon of 18 September opens with Symphony No. 4 which is considered to be one of Beethoven’s lighter symphonies once again recalling the work of Haydn. The concert concludes with Symphony No. 5, which often overshadows its predecessor as one of Beethoven’s most played symphonies.

On 20 September the CBSO performs Symphony No. 6 ‘Pastoral’, written in five movements and inspired by Beethoven’s love of nature. This is followed by a performance of Symphony No. 7 which was described by Wagner as ‘the apotheosis of dance’.

For the final concert on 21 September the CBSO perform Beethoven’s final two symphonies. Symphony No. 8 is the shortest of all nine and was referred to by Beethoven as ‘my little Symphony in F’. The CBSO is joined by soprano Annette Dasch, mezzo-soprano Lioba Braun, tenor Ben Johnson, bass Vuyani Mlindeand the CBSO Chorus for a performance of Symphony No. 9, the first example of a major composer using voices in a symphony, thus earning its name ‘Choral’.  

Andris Nelsons has been Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra since 2008, enjoying critically acclaimed seasons. With the CBSO, he undertakes major tours worldwide, including regular appearances at such summer festivals as Lucerne Festival, BBC Proms and Berliner Festspiele. Together they have toured the major European concert halls, including the Musikverein, Vienna, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Gasteig, Munich and the Auditorio Nacional de Música, Madrid.

‘Your Orchestra Needs You’ audience appeal

The CBSO currently performs to over 200,000 people each year, offers musical educations to thousands of children in the West Midlands, nurtures the talents of hundreds of local musicians through its youth and adult choirs and flies the flag for Birmingham both nationally and internationally. It has ambitious plans to build on this tradition of excellence but with a 24% cut in its public funding needs financial support to achieve them.

The CBSO launches its ‘Your Orchestra Needs You’ appeal on 16 Septemberwith a goal of raising £50,000 towards three priority areas of its work:

• keynote concerts, which in 2014–15 include Wagner’s Parsifal, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and the UK premiere of James MacMillan’s St Luke Passion;
• the CBSO Youth Orchestra, Youth Chorus and Children’s Chorus, which provide musical opportunities for 300 of the region’s most talented young musicians;
• War Requiem, a four-year major community project in Perry Barr bringing together young people with residents in local care homes to commemorate World War 1 centenary through music.

Donations are invited by cheque, credit card, BACS transfer or online giving through the CBSO website, and can be sent by post or left in collection boxes in Symphony Hall at CBSO concerts. www.cbso.co.uk