≈ 75 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: September 13, 2018
Reflection
The Beethoven symphonies are central to the life of musicians and audiences. Over the course of these nine masterpieces, Beethoven evolved not just his own music, but revolutionized all of music in a way and at a pace hitherto unprecedented. From the classical strains of his first to the universal themes of his last, there is not a single note out of place, not a single bar wasted, not a single idea unexplored. He challenges the orchestra to be its best. He demands rigour and attention of performers and listeners alike. And why? In order to express, through the abstract language of music, the most fundamental and tangible shared emotions of humankind. Joy, passion, warmth, mourning, hope, loss, melancholy, peace, victory, struggle, solidarity, desperation, reverence, simplicity... I cannot think of a state of mind that is not in one way or another expressed through this music.
As we begin our 50th anniversary season, we also begin our next artistic chapter in a reinvigorated Southam Hall with its glorious new shell and acoustic. I can conceive of no better way to explore every inch of this new space than with a fresh take on this most complete and all-encompassing of symphonic cycles. It is my great privilege to share this new stage with the incomparable musicians of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, who will interpret and form every note of this cycle with passion, detail, verve and love. And it is our great pleasure to share this musical Everest, this cornerstone of artistic output, with you, our dear audience. For 50 years, you have listened and responded. For 50 years, you have been instrumental in thousands of performances in this space. We are deeply grateful to you for that. Here’s to the new season, to the new hall and to a bright future for this wonderful, wonderful orchestra!
Repertoire
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, “Choral”
“A symphony should be like the world; it must embrace everything,” declared Gustav Mahler. Mahler’s dictum does not describe every symphony, of course, but Beethoven’s Ninth (“THE Ninth”) serves to embody this ideal to a degree scarcely equaled by any other symphony. In its grandeur, elemental power, cosmic scope and affirmation of the universal human spirit, the Ninth embraces a world of emotional expression ranging from deep pathos to exultant joy, from demonic fury to seraphic tranquility, from motoric energy to beatific stasis. The span of this almost 70-minute work seems to depict a vast structure forming “before our ears,” with the opening moments as coming “out of the void,” as former Cleveland Orchestra annotator Klaus G. Roy described the opening moments. “Fragments begin to cohere; thematic atoms and molecules form larger structures. To most listeners, the same sense of awe, wonder and mystery that accompanies contemplation of the starry night applies to the Ninth.”
A performance of Beethoven’s Ninth carries with it an aura of festival excitement, but such was not always the case. Nor did it have the almost universal acclaim we accord it today. The main stumbling block was, surprisingly enough, the very movement that enjoys almost “pop” status today, with its “Ode to Joy” theme. Fifty years after the symphony’s premiere, which took place in Vienna in 1824, Georges Bizet wrote that Parisian audiences still couldn’t understand it. Verdi was baffled by the vocal passages. In 1899, the Boston critic Philip Hale could only write of “the unspeakable cheapness of the chief tune,” and ask, “Is not the worship paid this Symphony mere fetishism?”
Controversy raged (and even today, still simmers) over whether the Ninth was a supreme stroke of genius, a glorious mistake, or an outright blunder. Beethoven had shown interest in setting Schiller’s “An die Freude” (written in 1785) as early as 1793, and had sketched a song to the text in 1798. It was not until 1822 that he considered incorporating “An die Freude” into the finale of his symphony. Yet even the following summer he was still thinking about an instrumental finale. The theme for this rejected movement was later used in the last movement of the String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. Many listeners regarded the composition as three-fourths absolute music and one-fourth cantata; others as a “higher, perfect, inevitable unity.” The prevailing view today holds that the finale does indeed form the logical culmination of the previous movements. Sir Donald Tovey expresses it thus: “There is no part of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony which does not become clearer to us for assuming that the choral finale is right.” In much the same vein, Marion Scott saw the finale as “providing that quality which was to Beethoven one thing without which all else was incomplete.”
Twelve years separated the completion of Beethoven’s final symphony from the Eighth (1812). Ideas, sketches and fragments had coalesced over a period of many years, but work commenced in earnest only in 1822. The symphony was finished in early 1824 and the premiere took place on May 7 of that year. The performance of this wildly original music of daunting difficulty, with just two rehearsals, could not have been very satisfactory. Yet the audience was profoundly moved. This event occasioned the famous, true story that biographers love to recount: On stage, Beethoven had been following the performance with his copy of the score. After the last notes, the audience erupted into applause, but Beethoven, totally deaf, was still engrossed in the imagined sounds of the music. One of the singers had to touch his sleeve and turn him around to acknowledge this applause in honour of the world’s greatest living composer.
Having definitely decided to incorporate “An die Freude” into his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven struggled greatly to find the proper way to introduce the vocal element into an otherwise purely instrumental symphony. His solution consisted of an instrumental introduction in which brief references to the three previous movements are peremptorily rejected by a recitative-like passage for cellos and basses. This “recitative” presents the musical material for the first vocal entry from the bass-baritone, who proclaims, “Oh friends, not these sounds! Let us sing of more pleasant and joyful things,” whereupon the famous theme, formerly played by the orchestra, is now sung (“Freude, schöner Götterfunken...”). This theme, of almost naïve simplicity, caused Beethoven no end of difficulty. Dozens of variants are found in his Sketchbooks, leading to the final, perfected form he retained.
The symphony’s opening is one of the most famous in the repertoire. Barely a moment is required for the listener to recognize that mood of hushed expectancy, created by the sound of stark fifths in the horns, the strange rustling in the lower strings, and the violins’ thematic fragments that soon coalesce into a mighty unison outburst for the full orchestra. Though laid out in sonata form (exposition – development – recapitulation – coda), the movement contains a wealth of thematic ideas, and is far too complex to discuss in terms of the traditional contrasting first and second themes. The principle of continuous growth pervades instead, with much of the musical material distinguished by its rhythmic rather than melodic interest. The development section involves a lengthy working out of the principal theme (the initial unison outburst). The approach of the recapitulation is signaled by two immense, terrifying statements of the principal theme in D major over rumbling timpani. Leo Treitler writes of the “horrifying brightness that the major mode can have. It is, all in all, the shock of being now pulled into the opening with great force, instead of having it wash over us.” The movement ends in an apocalyptic vision.
For the first and only time, Beethoven precedes the slow movement of a symphony with the Scherzo, a plan Bruckner was to follow seventy years later in his own Ninth, also in D minor. As music of relentless, driving power, the Scherzo is unsurpassed. This huge structure consists of a sonata-form scherzo with two important themes. But like the first movement, this is anything but a conventional sonata form. The rhythmic pattern hammered out in the opening bars and its characteristic octave drop pervade the fugally developed first theme, in addition to becoming the accompaniment pattern to the robust and joyous second theme heard in the unison woodwinds. The central Trio section brings much-needed relief – a breath of fresh air and sunlight. Brighter colours, the major mode and more transparent textures all serve to contrast the Trio with the demonic power of the Scherzo, which is then repeated in full.
The Adagio movement, one of the most sublime ever written, stands in stark contrast to the propulsive energy and forbidding grimness of the previous movements. Two lyrical and well-contrasted themes of transcendent beauty are alternately elaborated in a double variation form. A mood of quiet exaltation and profound peace reigns by the closing pages, only to be shattered by one of the most horrendous outbursts in all music.
After the finale’s long instrumental antecedent (discussed above) is finished, the movement unfolds in free variation form. Beginning with the bass soloist’s first stanza, the “Ode to Joy” moves through a series of highly varied treatments: twice for solo vocal quartet (followed by choral response); a march featuring instruments the Viennese associated with “Turkish” music – triangle, bass drum, piccolo – with tenor solo; an elaborate orchestral fugue answered by a mighty choral affirmation of the “Ode to Joy”; a stately new theme beginning with “Seid umschlungen, Millionen” (Andante maestoso), initially for male chorus and trombones, which in the following section (Allegro energico) combines with the “Ode to Joy” in a great double fugue; a spirited vocal quartet introduced by skittering violins, and joined later by full chorus. This leads to the famous cadenza for the soloists, where the operatic implications of voices joining orchestra are fully exploited. Each soloist climbs to the top of his or her range. In a final burst of frenzied joy, the Ninth ends in the realm of Elysium, light years removed from the cares and toils of daily life.
The Beethoven scholar Maynard Solomon, in an address in Detroit some years ago, summed up the import of Beethoven’s Ninth in these words: “Beethoven’s life and his art can be envisaged as a search for Elysium, for ’one day of pure joy,’ for fraternal and familial harmony, as well as for a just and enlightened social order. With the ’Ode to Joy’ of the Ninth Symphony that search found its symbolic fulfillment.
“Beethoven’s Ninth has been perceived by later generations as an unsurpassable model of affirmative culture, a culture which, by its beauty and idealism, some believe, anesthetizes the anguish and the terror of modern life, thereby standing in the way of a realistic perception of society… If we lose the dream of the Ninth Symphony, there may remain no counterpoise against the engulfing terrors of civilization, nothing to set against Auschwitz and Vietnam as a paradigm of humanity’s potentialities.”
By Robert Markow
Mario Bernardi led the NAC Orchestra’s first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in 1974, with singers Jeanette Zarou, Gloria Doubleday, Tibor Kelen and Joseph Rouleau taking the solo parts. Last September the ensemble gave their most recent interpretation of this work under the baton of Alexander Shelley, with Ambur Braid, Lauren Segal, John Tessier and Phillip Addis as the soloists.
Artists
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Alexander Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s NAC Orchestra in September 2015. The ensemble has since been praised as being “transformed... hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen) and Shelley’s programming credited for turning the orchestra into “one of the more audacious in North America” (Maclean’s).
Shelley is a champion of Canadian creation; recent hallmarks include the multimedia projects Life Reflected and UNDISRUPTED,and three major new ballets in partnership with NAC Dance for Encount3rs. He is passionate about arts education and nurturing the next generation of musicians. He is an Ambassador for Ottawa’s OrKidstra, a charitable social development program that teaches children life skills through making music together.
Alexander Shelley is also the Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and, starting with the 2024–2025 season, Artistic and Music Director of Artis-Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, USA. In the spring of 2019, he led the NAC Orchestra on its critically acclaimed 50th Anniversary European tour, and in 2017, he led the Orchestra in a tour across Canada, celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary. Most recently, he led the Orchestra in its first performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 30 years.
He has made eight recordings with the NAC Orchestra, including the JUNO-nominated New Worlds, Life Reflected, ENCOUNT3RS, The Bounds of Our Dreams, and the acclaimed Clara, Robert, Johannes four-album series, all with Canadian label Analekta.
The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., O.N.L., LL.D. (hc)
French-Canadian mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne is acclaimed for the vocal agility and expressive power of her dark-hued tone, focusing on the works of Berlioz, Mozart, and Rossini.
During the 2021–22 season, she returned to the Metropolitan Opera as the title role in Massenet’s Cinderella, in a new production for family audiences; the Wiener Staatsoper as Charlotte in Werther, and both the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and the Glyndebourne Festival as Dorabella in Così fan tutte. Additionally, in her native Québec, she joined Opéra de Montréal as Rose Valland in the world premiere of Julien Bilodeau’s La beauté du monde and Opéra de Québec as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. On the concert stage, she performed César Franck’s Redemption with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, and Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Cinq mélodies populaires grecques with Orchestre Classique de Montréal.
In March 2009, Naxos Records released a recording of Shéhérazade and L’enfant et les sortilèges featuring Julie Boulianne and the Nashville Symphony, which was nominated for the GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Album. She can also be heard on a 2011 ATMA Classique release of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder. She recorded L’Aiglon by Ibert and Honegger under the baton of Kent Nagano released by Decca in 2016, and two CDs with Luc Beauséjour released by Analekta: Handel & Porpora – The London Years, and recently, Alma Opressa, Vivaldi – Handel: Arias.
Former conductor of the Vienna Boys’ Choir and Cantata Singers of Ottawa, Laurence Ewashko celebrates his 32nd season of choral activity in the National Capital Region. As a choral clinician, vocal coach and adjudicator, he makes a significant contribution to the quality and appreciation of vocal music in Canada and abroad. Laurence has prepared choruses for many prestigious conductors, and he regularly does so at the National Arts Centre.
A Full Professor of Choral Studies at the University of Ottawa, he conducts the School of Music’s two choirs. Laurence is a recipient of the prestigious Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting and numerous awards from the Canada Council of the Arts.
One of Canada’s premier large choral ensembles, the Ottawa Choral Society (OCS) draws its auditioned voices from across the National Capital Region. As well as presenting an annual subscription series, the Society appears regularly with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, performs under renowned conductors with acclaimed vocal artists, and tours internationally. Its programming is diverse and ambitious—from timeless masterworks to adventurous music by today’s leading composers.
With a vision of creating community through music, the OCS fosters Canadian talent by providing training opportunities for young soloists, conductors, and choral singers. The Society commissions and performs new works, engages leading Canadian musicians, offers bursaries and scholarships, and invites the region’s outstanding youth and children’s choirs to share its stage.
Our 2023–2024 season begins with A Christmas Playlist at the National Arts Centre. On December 17, we perform a concert of seasonal music (at St. Francis of Assisi Church) featuring renowned actor Pierre Brault as storyteller. On March 5, 2024, we present Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and other works by Jewish composers (at Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre). On May 26 we perform the Te Deums by Haydn, Dvořák, and Pärt, at St. Francis of Assisi. Our season closes with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the National Arts Centre on June 19 and 20.
ottawachoralsociety.com
Cantata Singers of Ottawa (CSO) is marking 60 years and Artistic Director Andrew McAnerney has programmed “A Season of Celebration.”
CSO’s concert series for 2023–2024 includes Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (in November), Arctic Soundscapes with music from Arctic countries (in April), and the CSO@60 Anniversary Concert (in June) with works from the choir’s 60 years of music making, specially commissioned pieces, and Haydn’s Nelson Mass with The Ottawa Baroque Consort.
Founded in 1964, the choir of approximately 45 voices has distinguished itself in the performance of music of many styles and musical periods from early music to minimalism, and is at home singing a cappella, with orchestra, or with small ensembles. The choir aspires to perform choral music to the highest standards, promotes choral music in Ottawa, and supports Canadian musical talent by commissioning Canadian composers, engaging Canadian musicians, providing scholarships to young Canadian singers, and including works by women and Canadian composers in seasonal programming.
With the exception of the COVID period, CSO has performed annually with the National Arts Centre Orchestra under the baton of every NAC Artistic Director, plus visiting guest conductors, since the NAC’s opening in 1969.
The choir has been an invited guest at a number of Canadian music festivals, including Festival de Lanaudière and Festival of the Sound. It has also partnered with such well-known Canadian choirs as Pro Coro Canada of Edmonton, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, and Montreal’s St. Lawrence Choir in joint concerts. Thanks to numerous CBC and Radio Canada broadcasts, the choir is well known across Canada.
The Ottawa Festival Chorus is a select community-based choir comprised of independent choristers and members of many of Ottawa’s fine choirs in the nation’s capital city. Led by Duain Wolfe and Laurence Ewashko, the Chorus made their debut in 2006, together with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, performing Bach’s Mass in B minor with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. The choir was recently featured in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring In Concert, Mozart’s Requiem, and Those Glorious Hollywood Musicals. This May, they sing in Fauré’s Requiem, and in June they will appear in the Fidelity Investments Pops show The Music of John Williams.
Formed in 1992 for a live broadcast marking 50 years of Radio Canada International, Ewashko Singers has developed into one of the most flexible vocal ensembles in the National Capital Region.
From Beethoven, Mahler, and Verdi to Richard Rodgers and Howard Shore, they skillfully perform music across a wide range of genres and languages. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Laurence Ewashko, Ewashko Singers regularly highlights Canadian composers and showcases young Canadian talent. In addition to their own concerts, they often collaborate with other local choirs and music ensembles. Recent highlights with the National Arts Centre Orchestra include the JUNO Award–winning live recording of Ana Sokolović’s Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, and Harry Somers’s opera Louis Riel as part of Canada 150 celebrations.
Tobi Hunt McCoy is enjoying another year as Season Stage Manager with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. In past seasons, she stage-managed Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Christopher Plummer in 2001 and Colm Feore in 2014. She co-produced the 1940s Pops show On the Air with Jack Everly for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, a show they co-produced in 2007 for the NAC Orchestra.
In 2018 McCoy made her Southam Hall acting debut in the role of Stage Manager in the Magic Circle Mime Co.’s production of Orchestra from Planet X. Additional professional duties have included aiding Susanna and the Countess in schooling the Count and Figaro on the finer points of marital love during The Marriage of Figaro, keeping her eyes open (for the first time ever) during the flying monkey scene in The Wizard of Oz, mistakenly asking Patrick Watson for proof of identity backstage, holding her breath while marvelling at the athletic ability of the cast during Cirque Goes Broadway, continuing to implement feedback on her British-Columbian French with the choruses of Ottawa, and cheering on Luke and Princess Leia with Charlie Ross, Émilie Fournier, and Eric Osner during the Star Wars Pops concert.
In her spare time, McCoy is the Head of Arts, Drama, English, and Library at Lisgar Collegiate Institute.
Choral roster
Choristers from:
- Ottawa Choral Society (OCS)
- Cantata Singers of Ottawa (CSO)
- Ottawa Festival Chorus (OFC)
- Ewashko Singers (ES)
Rehearsal pianist: Claire Stevens
Soprano
Maureen Brannan ES
Kathryn Bruce OCS
Rosemary Cairns-Way ES
Sheilah Craven OCS
Bonnie Day CSO
Kathy Dobbin OCS
Valerie Douglas CSO
Jessica Eblie ES
Carol Fahie OCS
Janet Fraser OCS
Rachel Gagnon OCS
Deirdre Garcia CSO
Candace Graham OFC
Beth Granger OCS
Christy Harris OCS
Julie Henderson OCS
Marilyn Jenkins OFC
Floralove Katz OCS
Sharon Keenan-Hayes ES
Joyce Lundberg OCS
Pat MacDonald OCS
Mary Martel-Cantelon OCS
Margaret McCoy OCS
Jessyca Morgan CSO
Colleen Morris CSO
Derry Neufeld OCS
Cathy Patton CSO
Nancy Savage OCS
Susan Scott OCS
Uyen Vu OCS
Tracey Wait OFC
Marlene Wehrle OCS
Allison Woyiwada OCS
Vanessa Wynn-Williams OCS
Karen Zarrouki OFC
Alto
Barbara Ackison CSO
Wanda Allard ES
Carol Anderson OCS
Kathryn Anderson OCS
Shelley Artuso OFC
Sandra Bason OCS
Ruth Belyea OCS
Frances Berkman OCS
Judy Brush CSO
Elizabeth Burbidge ES
Maureen Carpenter OCS
Vickie Classen Iles CSO
Barbara Colton OCS
Janet Cover CSO
Jennifer Davis OCS
Mary Gordon OFC
Adele Graf OCS
Elizabeth Gray CSO
Tara Hall OFC
Lisa Hans OCS
Lisanne Hendelman OCS
Angela Henry ES
Rachel Hotte ES
Pein-Pein Huang OCS
Diana James CSO
Eileen Johnson CSO
Caroline Johnston ES
Katharine Kirkwood OFC
Josie Machacek OFC
Grace Mann CSO
Lois Marion OCS
Andi Murphy CSO
Lise Patterson OFC
Eileen Reardon OCS
Nesta Scott OCS
Sally Sinclair OCS
Claire Thompson OCS
Caren Weinstein ES
Brenda Lee Wilson OCS
Diana Zahab ES
Tenor
Gary Boyd CSO
Gennaro Busa CSO
Diane Chevier OCS
Tim Coonen OCS
Richard Fujarczuk CSO
Bill Graham OFC
Ross Jewell CSO
David Lafranchise ES
Roy Lidstone OCS
Louis Majeau OCS
Alf Mallin OCS
Karl Mann CSO
Simon McMillan OCS
John Moffat OCS
David Palframan OCS
Sue Postlethwaite OCS
Ryan Tonelli ES
Bliss Tracy OCS
Bass
Andrew Aitkens OCS
Bob Armstrong OCS
Paul Badertscher OCS
Mike Beauchamp OCS
Ron Bell OFC
Ron Berman ES
Grant Cameron ES
Philip Cheifetz OCS
John Czich OCS
Erik de Vries OFC
Mark Dumbrique OCS
Peter Janzen OCS
Björn Johansson CSO
Gary King OCS
James Kubina ES
Doug MacDonald OCS
Ian MacMillan OCS
J.P. McElhone CSO
Eugene Oscapella ES
Andrew Rodger OCS
Mathieu Roy OCS
Daniel Savoie CSO
Nicholas Schmidtke OFC
Glen Seeds CSO
Aron Spector OCS
Tim Thompson OCS
Benoît Thouin OFC
Mike Vanier CSO
Pascal Viens OCS
Geoff White CSO
Christopher Yordy OFC