Music
Hector Berlioz: The Corsair, Overture
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto no.2 in B flat major op.19
Piotr Iliych Tchaikovsky: Symphony no.4 in F minor, op. 36

Direction: Michael Sanderling (Music Conductor)
Cast: Rafal Blechacz (Piano), Tonhalle Orchester Zürich

The first version of this overture dates from a stay Berlioz made in Nice in 1844, his second visit after that of 1831, during which he had composed the King Lear overture. The work was first entitled The Tower of Nice. The first performance took place under Berlioz's direction at the Cirque Olympique in Paris in a concert on 19 January 1845. According to a critic of the time, visibly taken aback by the new work:

It is an extremely original composition, full of fantastic effects and bizarre caprices. It looks like a Hoffmann tale. It throws you into an indefinable uneasiness; it torments you like a bad dream, and fills your imagination with strange and terrible images. Assuredly this tower of Nice is now inhabited by hundreds of owls and goldsmiths, and the ditches that surround it are filled with snakes and toads. Perhaps it served as a retreat for brigands or a fortress for some tyrant of the Middle Ages; perhaps some illustrious prisoner, some innocent and persecuted beauty have expired there in the agonies of hunger, or under the sword of the executioners. You can assume and believe everything when you hear these creaking violins, these croaking oboes, these groaning clarinets, these rumbling basses, these groaning trombones. The Overture to the Tower of Nice is perhaps the strangest and most curious work that has ever given birth to the imagination of a musician.

Berlioz revised the work between 1844 and 1851, and the overture was henceforth called Le Corsaire (a title which has no direct relation to Byron's The Corsair, which Berlioz had read in 1831 during his stay in Italy). Published in 1852, it is dedicated to his friend James Davison. The form follows that of all Berlioz's overtures from that of Benvenuto Cellini: a brief allusion to the main allegro precedes the slow movement, whose near-immobility contrasts with the overflowing energy of the allegro. The two parts are merged together by the return of the adagio theme as the second subject of the allegro (bars 196-255, with an anticipation in bars 174-195, then again bars 319-345). The brilliant features of the violins (bars 1-17, 72-88, 266-282) may have been inspired by the example of Weber (see the overtures to Freischütz, Euryanthe, and Oberon). It is surprising to note that the work, one of Berlioz's most brilliant, received only a few performances under the composer's direction during his lifetime. He conducted the first performance of the overture.

The concerto for piano and orchestra in B flat major op. 19 is the second (in order of opus numbers) of Ludwig van Beethoven's five concertos for piano and orchestra.

In fact, the young Beethoven had already composed a piano concerto in 1784 (Piano Concerto in E flat major, WoO4) of which an incomplete score remains. In addition, Concerto No. 2 was composed long before Concerto No. 1. Begun in the winter of 1794-95, a first version was given by Beethoven in Vienna on 29 March 1795. It was revised for the first time from August to October 1798 in preparation for a concert in Prague. Beethoven corrected the piano part several times before it was published by Hoffmeister in Leipzig in 1801.

On March 29, 1795, Beethoven performed for the first time in a major concert given by the famous Tonkünstler-Societät at the Burgtheater in Vienna. Gioas, re di Giuda, an oratorio by Antonio Casimir Cartellieri, was performed, and Beethoven was responsible for furnishing the intermission. The press echoed it in these terms:

"During the intermission [...] the famous M. Ludwig van Beethoven has received unanimous approval in a completely new concerto for pianoforte composed by himself. »

Unfortunately, the article does not mention the tonality, as was customary at the time, which deprives us of a valuable clue and gives rise to speculation as to the identity of this new concerto. In fact, we now know that Beethoven began composing the Concerto in B flat in Bonn. We have a page bearing watermarks from the Bonn period, around 1790. We also know of two different endings of this concerto opus 19, the first of which, chronologically, is the Rondo for piano and orchestra WoO 6, which was later discarded.

The Second Concerto was completed just before its performance, according to a habit that Beethoven seems to have retained for several years, and under difficult circumstances:

The concerto was then performed several times in Vienna on the occasion of various concerts. Perhaps Beethoven then took it up again during his second trip to Prague in 1798. In any case, it was not quite finished until 1800, since in sending various works to his friend and publisher F.A. Hoffmeister in Leipzig he wrote:

"A concerto for the pianoforte, which I do not give, it is true, for one of my best, as well as another [opus 15] which will be published here by Mollo (this for the information of Leipzig chroniclers), because I keep the best for myself until I make a trip. But there would be nothing shameful for you to have this concerto engraved. »

In a letter of June 1801 to Hoffmeister, Beethoven also indicated the opus number to be engraved for the concerto: it was to be No. 19 as well as the dedication to Mr. Charles Nickl, nobleman of Nickelsberg, aulic councillor of his Imperial and Royal Majesty.

The letter thus already reveals the existence of the 3rd Concerto in C minor, opus 37, which was also published four years after its composition. Indeed, for Beethoven, the concerto was necessary for the virtuoso in order to shine in concerts. It was therefore not necessary for it to be delivered to the general public by the publisher before the virtuoso performed. He explains it to his publisher in Vienna:

"It is good musical policy to keep the best concertos in your own mind for a long time."

Beethoven was often extremely critical of his work. Thus, he wrote to his publisher Hoffmeister:

"I only put the concerto at ten ducats, because, as I have already written to you, I do not give it for one of my best."

It is likely that after ten years of revision, Beethoven had grown tired of his concerto. Yet, in its delicate balance of robust themes (such as those in the finale) and the subtle and beautiful features of the slow movement, it is worthy of the classical Mozartian tradition.

There is no trace of the original cadenzas, as the musician is in the habit of improvising them in concert. However, we have the one he composed in 18092, probably for a pupil who did not master the art of improvisation, the Archduke Rudolf for example. Beethoven's pupil Czerny wrote in 1842 about the concerto: "At the end a cadenza must also be improvised"5. The message of this Beethoven devotee was clear: the improvisation of a cadenza is more a matter of duty than of freedom

The first movement differs from Beethoven's other concertos in the irregularity in the presentation of the themes. The orchestra expounds at length the first theme alone. The soloist takes up this theme briefly, then devotes himself to a second theme that had been completely ignored by the orchestra. The development is based exclusively on the first theme. The recapitulation takes up the latter briefly, but reexposes the second in its entirety. The coda has a long cadenza (79 bars) written by Beethoven in 1809 and includes a passage in fugato.

The second movement, in E flat major, is in sonata form without development. The piano still only responds to the orchestra's suggestions, the improvisation is less conventional, with in particular the very surprising end of the movement, notated con gran espressione.

In the final Rondo, this time it is the piano that initiates the chorus. This finale bears many similarities to its counterpart in the Concerto No. 1 Op. 15. Like him, he presents the form of the rondo sonata with a refrain and two verses (A B A C A B A Coda). This movement remains concise and rhythmically very dynamic.

The Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was composed between March and December 1877.

The brass bells that open the symphony represent the fatum ("A force of destiny that forbids us to taste happiness, jealously watches that our happiness and appeasement are never unmixed, hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles, and inexorably pours a slow poison into the soul. We must submit to it and resign ourselves to a hopeless sadness"). Every time man believes that he can detach himself from his destiny to move towards something better, the theme of fatum reappears as a brutal return to the sad reality. These brass bells will be the recurring theme of the symphony. The Fourth Symphony is the first of Tchaikovsky's so-called Destiny Symphonies. This was followed by the Fifth Symphony and the Pathétique.

The first three movements were composed in Venice, when Tchaikovsky was staying in room 106 of the Londra Palace (the Hotel Beau Rivage at the time) from 2 to 16 December 1877. He planned to name his symphony "Do Leoni" (The Two Lions) in honor of the lion of St. Mark and the English lion rampant.

The first performance of the Fourth Symphony took place in Moscow on 10 February 1878 under the direction of Nikolai Rubinstein. It quickly became a mainstay of the classical repertoire and was one of the most performed symphonies of the late nineteenth century.