IN CONCERT
What: Beethoven 250
Where: Farquhar Auditorium, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Rd.
When: March 7 through March 22
Tickets: $35–$58 from the University Centre box office (250-721-8480) or tickets.uvic.ca
Victoria Symphony music director Christian Kluxen needs no introduction to Ludwig van Beethoven, the German composer behind some of the most instantly recognizable music in history.
But he certainly needed to think outside the box when it came to planning the Victoria Symphony’s 2 1/2-week celebration of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
“When you program [a season], you think about all kinds of ways to use an occasion like this,” Kluxen said of Beethoven 250, which gets underway Saturday at the University of Victoria’s Farquhar Auditorium.
“It was an interesting thing to try with this orchestra. I like these kinds of marathon challenges. Everyone has to push themselves a bit further. Having this kind of pressure is nice sometimes.”
Farquhar Auditorium will be home over the next month to five concerts celebrating all nine symphonies by Beethoven, who was born Dec. 17, 1770. The kickoff Saturday will feature Symphonies No. 5 and No. 3 on the program, while Symphonies No. 2, No. 4 and No. 7 are being performed March 12.
Symphonies No. 6 and No. 8 are on tap March 15, with Symphonies No. 1 and No. 9 completing the run on March 22 and March 23.
Kluxen’s monumental task was made somewhat easier by the experience level of all involved. There isn’t a member of a professional orchestra who hasn’t played at least one of Beethoven’s symphonies at some point in his or her career.
“The symphony has never done all of Beethoven’s symphonies in such a short time, but we have done quite a few of them before, so the musicians have some of my markings in their music already. They know, more or less, what I want stylistically.”
The Victoria Symphony is one of countless orchestras worldwide celebrating the Beethoven anniversary, so Kluxen wanted the Farquhar Auditorium series to be unique.
Kluxen instinctively knew he couldn’t put Symphonies No. 5 and No. 9 — Beethoven’s most famous pieces of work — on the same program, so he paired them with lesser-known compositions.
“You have to think about how they fit together. All of them go together in some way, but you can match different levels of intensity.”
Tickets are selling well for the performances, which isn’t surprising, given Beethoven’s legacy and enduring popularity.
Not every attendee will be familiar with all the composer’s symphonies, so Kluxen expects a range of reactions to each program. Beethoven’s concertos and symphonies are “very different animals,” Kluxen said, but there is much to appreciate in the genius of his writing, no matter where the allegiance of each audience member lies.
“I see Beethoven’s symphonies and piano concertos as core repertoire — they could be compared to a human body part. If you’ve looked at your feet all your life, what will you learn from looking at your hands suddenly? They are totally different, and still the same. But they can be used differently, and will show you other things.”
