All-Beethoven concert Saturday
| Wednesday, Apr 15 2009 03:23 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Apr 15 2009 03:23 PM
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Internationally acclaimed Beethoven specialist William Kinderman joins the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra Saturday evening to perform an all-Beethoven concert program at the Rabobank Theater.
Kinderman will perform the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, which Beethoven wrote between 1796 and 1797. Beethoven gained his first fame not as a composer, but as a pianist, known as much for ability to improvise as for his technical and artistic virtuosity, and he wrote to showcase this ability. This first piano concerto is written in the Classical style resembling Haydn and Mozart, but already shows signs of the individuality that would mark Beethoven's later compositions.
A professor of musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Kinderman is also a distinguished and prolific author. His book "Beethoven," which discusses the composer's lifelong artistic evolution, was just reissued by Oxford University Press to critical acclaim. His concert performances have been equally praised, as have his recordings on the Hyperion label.
The orchestra will perform Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F Major, which the composer officially titled "Pastoral Symphony, Or Recollections of Country Life." Written in 1808 and premiered along with his Symphony No. 5 in c minor, this sixth symphony, which the composer said was "more an expression of feeling than of painting," can be interpreted as a statement of his own love for nature and the countryside, which became a source of comfort to him as he lost his hearing and became more isolated from society.
Jerome Kleinsasser will discuss both compositions at a free lecture at 7 p.m. at the theater. Tickets range from $32 to $48 and are available at the Rabobank box office.
