Beethoven / Dvořák, Martin Rajna
The renowned Hungarian conductor, Martin Rajna, takes to the Venetian stage at Venice's glorious La Fenice Opera House for a symphonic programme featuring works by Ludwig van Beethoven and Antonin Dvořák. Rajna will conduct the highly respected La Fenice Orchestra in a rendition of Beethoven's Symphony no. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60 followed by Symphony no. 8 in G major, Op. 88 by Dvořák. Each work is among the most popular of the music repertoire performed today and this series of concerts will, therefore, delight devoted music fans as well as occasional concert-goers in equal measure.
Beethoven's famous Fourth Symphony was composed in 1806 and went on to be premiered in March the following year at a private concert in Vienna which was staged at the home of a local nobleman, Prince Lobkowitz. The first public performance of the symphony was put on at the Burgtheater in Vienna. It took place on 13 April 1808. The great German composer used adagio for the introduction of the first movement which manages to generate a suspenseful atmosphere in part because it skilfully avoids the symphony's home key for an astonishing 42 bars. By the time the jovial nature of the fourth and final movement is played, listeners will have been on a significant musical journey. The Fourth Symphony contains many of the elements for which Beethoven is famous, notably the broad scope of the scherzo as he had demonstrated before in his Third Symphony, the Eroica.
Dvořák himself conducted the National Theatre Orchestra at the premiere of his Eighth Symphony on 2 February 1890 in Prague's Rudolfinum. Dvořák's symphony is very much a romantic piece, itself influenced to some degree by Beethoven's later compositional style. In fact, with the Czech composer working from his home country and feeling settled, it is not going too far to say that he sought to answer some of the questions concerning the fundamental issues of human existence in his music. To do this, Dvořák stuck to the established structure of a classical symphony but he remained innovative throughout. The deliberate use of barely altered phrasing in repetition in the opening movement is a typical example, something which may reflect the Czech composer's admiration for the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C minor, Pathétique. Both the first and third movements begin in G minor before shifting to G major, another indication of Dvořák's more established musical style by this time in his career.
With two great symphonic works and a conductor who was appointed as the principal conductor of the Hungarian State Opera at only 27 years of age, these concerts will provide a great deal of musical entertainment.