Program Notes

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Overture to The Consecration of the House , Op. 124 (1822)

Scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings

The overtures of Ludwig van Beethoven have come to occupy a prominent place in his orchestral output. Although nearly all of them were intended as introductions to incidental music, and to the composer's one and only opera, the overtures have, nonetheless, taken on a life of their own. Their masterful construction, symphonic proportions and dramatic impact give them a value that stand as complete statements quite apart from their original purpose.

Beethoven's final overture, The Consecration of the House was born out of unusual circumstances. In 1812, the famous composer was asked to provide incidental music for two one-act plays written for the opening of the Royal Theatre in Pest by the equally esteemed dramatist August von Kotzebue. The two plays were, in order, King Stephen , an apt subject as Stephen was Hungary's first benefactor, and The Ruins of Athens as the finale. The plays and the music written for them seem to have been very well received. The plays and music served their purpose well, and, like the artistic fruits of most state occasions, they would be consigned to oblivion.

But in 1822, a similar occasion in Vienna brought Beethoven back to the mind of the director of the newly rebuilt Josephstadter Theatre. The director recalled the rousing success of Beethoven's music in Pest, and thought that if it was good enough for the Hungarians…

Beethoven was duly contacted and told that his music was to be used for a new text by Karl Meisl to be called The Consecration of the House , but as the story had changed, the original work was not suitable in its present form. Beethoven must have been in a good mood (or in straightened financial circumstances), because he not only agreed to the revisions, but wrote some new pieces and a brand new overture to go with it. This delightful preamble, unfortunately heard less often than other Beethoven overtures, adopts a style that Beethoven called "Handelian." The forward-looking composer was about to pen two of his mightiest works, the Missa Solemnis and the ninth symphony, but here he takes a leisurely step back in an effort to capture the majesty of the baroque, and especially, the festive joy of Handel.

Donald Francis Tovey has given us a master's view of the overture which I quote here.

It consists of a solemn slow march, followed by a passage of squarely rhythmic fanfares for trumpets, through which bassoons may be faintly heard in a sound suggestive of hurrying footsteps; then there is the tread of some concourse not less excited, but more certain of its goal; a moment of solemn calm; silence, and the first faint stirring of a movement impelled from some vast distance by a mighty rushing wind, which then seizes us in the career of a great orchestral fugue, rising from climax to climax in a world which is beyond that of action or drama because all that has been done and suffered is now accomplished and proved not in vain.