Ludwig van Beethoven first debuted his Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major Op. 58 in what has been described as a “marathon” performance in Vienna’s famous Theater an der Wien on Dec. 22, 1808.
Lasting more than four hours, by the time the orchestra got to Beethoven’s final Choral Fantasy — which marked the last time he would ever perform as a soloist — the audience had become restless and cold in the unheated theatre, and the reception was tepid.
Though these works, which included his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, later became some of his best-known, the concerto sunk into oblivion for years before composer, pianist and conductor Felix Mendelssohn “rescued” it and performed it in Leipzig in 1836.
Today, Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major Op. 58 is performed around the world and lauded for its tinkling, complex beauty and unusual, convention-defying opening which features a solo piano.
As such, it seemed a perfect centrepiece for Blooming, which is not only Vancouver Island Symphony’s opening performance for what is now their 29th season, but also the first for the symphony’s newly appointed artistic director, Cosette Justo Valdés.
“Beethoven’s piano concerto is one that basically ‘blooms’ starting with the piano solo, which goes into the orchestra. For me, it gives me that impression, that image, of a flower blooming,” says Valdés.
“Which is what I feel has a lot to do with all of us. I feel I am blooming — as a conductor in Canada, with this first position as artistic director with my own orchestra outside of Cuba. My international career is blooming. So I feel that I am in a new phase of my life. And the orchestra has the opportunity to experience a new phase and a blooming as well,” she adds.
The program for Blooming, which takes place on Oct. 25 at the Port Theatre, is a journey that starts in darkness and with the short, strong composition Bite, by Toronto-based composer Bekah Simms, who won the 2023 Juno Award for classical composition of the year.
“She expresses her experience during COVID, a lot of isolation, uncertainty, dark colours. I think we are all going to easily relate with that piece,” says Valdés, who adds that this is Simms’ first piece for a full orchestra. “Then after the darkness there is a blooming and appearance of light, and then we go on to the last piece which is not an ending but is a question.”
This final piece is Soviet-era Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47, whose music is close to Valdés’s heart because as a Cuban, her home country shares a lot in common with the former Soviet Union.
“In that music we can feel the pain, the frustration, the discourses that one cannot say up front or that we keep for ourselves, or what is untold. The calling for bravery, for resiliency, for not accepting dictatorships,” she says. “It’s not so much a political conversation but a human conversation about the meaning of freedom and how to choose peace and respect each other.”
This performance also marks a reunion for Valdés and pianist Philip Chiu, who first worked together last May.
Valdés was working on a concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, where she is the resident conductor. At the last moment, days before the performance, their piano soloist cancelled. Chiu was flown in at the last minute to fill the gap, and though he had played the feature piece — Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 — about a year and a half earlier, getting the piece ready to perform in a matter of days was a lot of pressure.
“It’s a pretty crazy [piece of] work. I didn’t sleep for three days,” he says with a laugh. “But it was also kind of thrilling.”
Chiu will showcase his piano skills as the guest musician on Beethoven’s piano concerto.
“There’s something about Beethoven’s music — and I think his spirit and ethos. The questions that he wrestled with as an artist are questions that we still wrestle with today,” says Chiu. “And even though he wrestled with massive questions, the writing itself is immediately accessible. You hear the struggle in his music — the search for freedom, the search for an identity, the knocking of fate — you hear him pushing against forces that always seem to be greater than him. And I think there’s something very universal about that, and that may be part of why his music still resonates today.”
Vancouver Island Symphony’s performance Blooming takes place Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. at The Port Theatre, 125 Front St.
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