‘Eroica’ first in series

Press, 11 April 1978, Page 19

‘Eroica’ first in series

Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony is the major work in the first concert of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra’s 1978 subscription series, which will feature the larger Beethoven symphonies. The concert, to be given in the Town Hall Auditorium on Saturday night, will open with Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture, an evocative piece of music whichsprang from a visit the 2 0-y e a r-old composer made to Fingal’s Cave, in Scotland, in 1829. He was so struck by the surging of the water in the cavern that he was moved to write down, there and then, the figure which opens the overture. The mezzo-soprano. Patricia Lawrey, will sing wnth the orchestra five of Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” (“The youth’s magic horn”) songs. Written at the end of the eighteenth century, they had their genesis in a large collection of German folk-songs, poems, and carols collected by Arnim and Brentano. The songs spanned nearly three cen-

turies, and had a simple yet quaint nature.

Patricia Lawrey, born in Christchurch, is in keen demand throughout New Zealand as <-n oratorio singer, a radio broadcaster of lieder and other songs, and a singer with the New Zealand Symphony Orhcestra. Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony, his third, has been the subject of speculation because, while it is obviously connected with Napoleon, the second movement apparently has him dead — it is a funeral march — yet the following two movements picture a man very much alive. Beethoven tore up the dedication page mentioning Napoleon when Bonaparte made himself emperor; the composer had expected France to be made a republic. There is a theory that Beethoven wrote the second movement in the style of a funeral march as an expression of sorrow. The orchestra will be conducted on Saturday by its musical director, Peter Zwartz.