≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Last updated: October 10, 2024
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Jessica Cottis, conductor
Jonathan Biss, piano
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15
I. Allegro con brio
II. Largo
III. Rondo: Allegro
SALLY BEAMISH City Stanzas (Piano Concerto No. 3)
I. Burlesque
II. Requiem
III. Rondo
INTERMISSION
SERGEI PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 100
I. Andante
II. Allegro marcato
III. Adagio
IV. Allegro giocoso
Repertoire
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15
I. Allegro con brio
II. Largo
III. Rondo: Allegro
In November 1792, Beethoven (1770–1827) moved from his hometown of Bonn to Vienna, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Initially he came to study with Joseph Haydn (the notable “father” of the symphony and the string quartet) and was also eager to establish himself there as a pianist and composer. He soon accomplished the latter with astonishing success, in part because of his strong connections to members of the aristocracy, many of whom lavished their wealth on supporting music-making at their town palaces and country estates. In private concerts held in their salons, Beethoven began to make his name as a virtuoso, impressing his patrons with his stunning technique and improvisational skills.
In Vienna at this time, public concerts were not yet a characteristic of cultural life like they were in London and Paris, so musicians had few opportunities to perform for audiences there, other than at charity concerts or the occasional subscription concert. It wasn’t until March 29, 1795, that Beethoven made his first public Viennese debut at the Burgtheater, at a benefit concert for widows of the Tonkünstlergesellschaft (music society). Scholars have generally confirmed that for the occasion, he performed an “entirely new” concerto in C major, probably an early version of what we know as Piano Concerto No. 1.
An anecdote by Beethoven’s friend Franz Gerhard Wegeler reveals that for this concert, the composer completed his concerto at the last minute, while enduring severe indigestion:
Only on the second afternoon before the performance…did he write the Rondo, and indeed with a rather heavy colic, which he often suffered. I helped in small ways, as much as I could. In the anteroom sat four copyists, to whom he gave each completed sheet individually…
Beethoven may not have written out the piano part at this stage, but he did perform the concerto elsewhere. Later, in 1800, he completed a fresh autograph score of it (likely a revision of the 1795 version, now lost), to which he made further edits. The first edition of the C-major concerto was published in parts in March 1801 (although titled “No. 1”, it was preceded at least by the composition of the B-flat concerto, which was issued as No. 2). Beethoven dedicated the piece to Babette Odescalchi, one of his pupils, possibly to honour her marriage to Prince Innocenz Odescalchi, which occurred a month before its publication.
As it was originally written for himself to play, Beethoven’s C-major concerto, by turns brilliant and expressive, gives us an inkling of his virtuosic capabilities, and is likewise a similar display vehicle for today’s soloists. The first movement features two contrasting themes: a bright, march-like tune with its characteristic opening “call”, introduced by the strings, and later, a gracious, smooth-lined melody, initially sung by violins in warm E-flat major. When the piano enters, though, it plays a completely new theme, until the orchestra brings it back on track with the march tune, which the piano proceeds to expand on with tumbling arpeggios and runs. In the central development section, the E-flat-major warmth returns as the piano spins out a glorious fantasia, with dialoguing woodwinds later appearing overtop. This quietens into a mysterious exchange; then suddenly, a dazzling frenzy of octaves leads us into a reprise of the main themes. The movement culminates in a cadenza, which Beethoven would have improvised, but he wrote down three, the third being the most elaborate and jam-packed with bravura effects.
A melody of serene and contemplative mien opens the Largo. Piano and orchestra alternately unveil its phrases, though each time the soloist takes up the song, the melody becomes increasingly ornamented. Strikingly, as it gets more complex, the music seems to attain a greater interiority and depth, rather than being merely flashy.
The Rondo finale is a charming romp with a chuckling main theme that’s introduced by the piano. Between its subsequent recurrences are intricate episodes full of ideas; in the first, piano runs bring us to a lyrical melody played by oboe and violins, then echoed by the soloist who takes it through other keys. The piano takes the lead in the second episode, playing a lively dance-like tune in the minor mode that alternates with more flowing lines. Near the end, following a varied reprise of the first episode, there’s a brief cadenza. The main theme returns, but the fun is not yet over, as a coda of Haydn-esque surprise and wit ensues between piano and woodwinds; then, with a final outburst, the orchestra swiftly brings the concerto to a rousing close.
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
City Stanzas (Piano Concerto No. 3)
I. Burlesque
II. Requiem
III. Rondo
London-born Sally Beamish (b. 1956) began her career as a viola player with the Raphael Ensemble, Academy of St Martins, and the London Sinfonietta, before moving to Scotland in 1990 to focus on composition. She was appointed a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2015, and of the Royal Swedish Academy in 2022. In 2018 she won the Award for Inspiration at the British Composer Awards, and in 2020 was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours.
Among her works, she is known for her many concertos for internationally renowned soloists, including Branford Marsalis, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Håkan Hardenberger, Steven Isserlis, and Tabea Zimmermann. Recent concertos include one for harpist Catrin Finch, entitled Hive, which was shortlisted for a South Bank Sky Arts Award in 2022, and Distans, for violinist Janine Jansen and clarinetist Martin Fröst.
Beamish’s third piano concerto, City Stanzas, is, as she explains, “a response to a request from Jonathan Biss, who has commissioned five works to partner the five Beethoven piano concertos. This piece corresponds to Beethoven’s first concerto, and was composed over the autumn of 2016.” Biss premiered the work with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in January 2017.
Beamish provides the following description of her piece:
My first two piano concertos refer to the natural world—the first, Hill Stanzas (premiered by Ronald Brautigam with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta), to the Cairngorm mountains, and the second, Cauldron of the Speckled Seas, to a whirlpool off the west coast of Scotland. In this third concerto, I turned to the urban landscape.
What I didn't know was how deeply I would be affected by the political situation both in the UK and in the USA, and how this in turn would affect the work. I began to see “the city” as mankind’s assault on the planet. I had initially intended a celebration of inventiveness and creativity, but began to perceive also a motive of greed in the centres of power and commerce—the development of profit-making technology, of ever more efficient armaments; the widening of the gulf between those who have everything and those who starve. The music in all three movements is darkly sardonic.
The side drum is the soloist in the opening bars, building to the first solo piano entry. Octaves and runs set up an ironic, circus-like toccata. After a central more relaxed section, the opening music is heard in retrograde, so that the upward scales from the first part reappear heading downwards, and the side drum fades into the distance.
The central movement represents urban decay, and loneliness. It is a memorial for those who die alone in the midst of the city.
The last movement presents an unstable, chaotic structure: the mood is grotesque and hollow, with the different sections overlapping, and no attempt at integration. It follows the pattern of Beethoven’s Rondo, and takes some of its themes, but with a queasy irony. In the midst of a virtuosic cadenza, the piano introduces a lost, lyrical voice, which reappears several times but is extinguished at the end of the piece by savage, slashing chords.
All the material in this work derives in some way from the Beethoven concerto, taking a small group of notes or a rhythmic pattern from each corresponding movement as a starting point. All three movements are symmetrical in some sense—the first two framed by a mirror image of their opening bars, and the last a typical rondo, beginning and ending with its main theme.
The concerto is inspired by Jonathan’s individual, expressive and virtuosic playing, and the clarity of his sound world. It is also affected by our shared anxiety about the future.
Composer biography and program note compiled and edited by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 100
I. Andante
II. Allegro marcato
III. Adagio
IV. Allegro giocoso
When Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) completed his Fifth Symphony in 1944, it had been 14 years since he wrote a symphony and much in his life had changed substantially. Back in 1930, he was based in Paris, where he had lived and worked since 1922. Compared to his compatriot Igor Stravinsky, however, he attained only modest success there, and after an especially triumphant tour in 1927 of his native Russia, now the USSR, Prokofiev mulled for years whether to make a more permanent return. In July 1936, he finally moved to Moscow with his family, a questionable decision not least because it was at the height of Joseph Stalin’s grisly purges. Following the public denunciation in January that year of Dmitri Shostakovich over his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, which was criticized in the newspaper Pravda for being “chaos instead of music”, composers whose works did not conform to the aesthetic principles of “soviet realism” were now targets. The extent to which Prokofiev anticipated these dangerous developments and what his true private motivations were to move back then remain a mystery.
Despite the challenges and pressures of living in such an environment, Prokofiev was keen to succeed and readily adapted his compositional style. Already by the end of the 1920s, he was seeking to write in a musical language that was more melodic and less complexly dissonant, which he described as “the new simplicity”. The works he produced after 1936 reveal a maturation of this aesthetic, which seemed to also fit in with the Soviet concept of art; considered among the finest (and the most internationally successful) of these are the cantata Alexander Nevsky (after his score for the Sergei Eisenstein film), the ballet Cinderella, and Symphony No. 5.
The Fifth Symphony was premiered on January 13, 1945, on an all-Prokofiev program with his first symphony (the “Classical”) and Peter and the Wolf, at the Moscow Conservatory by the State Symphonic Orchestra of the USSR conducted by the composer. With its dramatic tone, heroic spirit, and powerful lyrical expressivity, the symphony was an immediate success with the Soviet audience and cultural establishment. Today, it’s the best known of Prokofiev’s symphonies after the “Classical” Symphony. Prokofiev later remarked that “The Fifth Symphony is the culmination of an entire period in my work. I conceived of it as a symphony on the greatness of the human soul.”
The Fifth is epic in scale (it’s the longest of the composer’s seven symphonies), and employs traditional symphonic forms, which are shaped into strong dramatic arcs. In each movement, the main themes are presented and developed through many twists and turns, with tension building gradually to a climatic release. The opening Andante features three key musical ideas: an expansive melody, introduced at the beginning by flute and bassoon; a delicate second theme, first intoned by flute and oboe over tremolo figures in the strings; and a forceful tune with dotted rhythms, on upper woodwinds and strings, brightened by trumpet. Listen out for the transformation of these themes throughout the movement as they’re taken up by various instrumental groups. Following a central development section in which the movement’s lyrical elements gain power, the opening melody returns, now as a bold brass chorale; by comparison, the second theme, once again on flute and oboe, sounds fragile. In the coda, the first theme becomes a mighty proclamation that culminates in a blazing finish.
Violins establish a rapid ticking pattern at the start of the scherzo movement, over which clarinet presents a quirky little tune. It’s then tossed around the orchestra, inhabiting many guises—including a swirling variant quietly snuck in by muted violins, a jagged version with wide leaping intervals, also on violins, and one in half-tempo intoned by bassoon—with the occasional outburst from brass and percussion. Later, a declamatory tune, piped by oboes and clarinets, frame a central Trio featuring a jaunty dance tune in triple time. When the scherzo returns, Prokofiev amps up the drama, by beginning at the already slower tempo, the ticking now a chromatic pattern on staccato trumpets. Gradually, the pace accelerates as the tune is revealed in fragments, and after arriving at the original tempo, it undergoes more sinister and aggressive transformations that build to a brusque close.
The Adagio, with its intense lyricism and atmosphere of tragic grandeur, shows Prokofiev at the peak of his expressive powers. Over a gentle rocking motive, clarinet and bass clarinet play the start of a serene melody, which is continued by flute and bassoon, then taken to ethereal heights by the violins. Strings continue to develop the melody, singing lushly, as the mood intensifies with ominous beats from the bass drum. After it subsides, the piano initiates the central section with a pulsating duplet-triplet rhythm. From the depths, bassoon, tuba, and lower strings draw out a new upward-reaching theme, which is answered by insistent dotted rhythms and upward flourishes; another idea, sombre in character, is later introduced by woodwinds and trumpet. These elements combine, as the tempo picks up, and move towards a menacing climax with blaring dissonances. Out of the devastation, the opening melody returns, like an apparition, in the violins and cellos. It triggers one last passionate outpouring that then sinks into an episode of magical sonorities (listen for high piccolo over silvery accompaniment), after which the rocking motive comes to rest at last.
A pastoral melody eases us into the finale, with flute and bassoon winding their way to a reminiscence of the opening theme, reinterpreted as a sumptuous chorale by the cello section divided into four parts. Violas then launch into a driving rhythmic pattern, and overtop, clarinet pipes a playful tune (tinged with Prokofiev’s trademark acerbic dissonances) that is the movement’s main recurring theme. The energy here, although lively, remains contained as woodwinds and strings trade off spiky and lyrical phrases. A brief contrasting episode ensues, featuring a sweetly lyrical melody alternately carried by flute, clarinet, and violins. Soon, the main tune reappears for an expanded reprise. It heads off in new directions, eventually bringing us back to the opening pastoral melody, which is now further developed in counterpoint, with glimpses of brightness breaking through. The playful tune returns once again, followed by the lyrical second theme; only after this is the orchestra fully unleashed, and like an unstoppable machine, heads exhilaratingly and inexorably to the final chord crash.
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Artists
Conductor Jessica Cottis has earned widespread recognition for her inventive, thought-provoking programming and inspiring musical leadership. A gifted communicator described as “cool, contained, super-articulate and engaging” (The Scotsman), she is one of the most outstanding Australian conductors working today, in high demand from orchestras around the world.
During the 2024–2025 season, Cottis makes her highly anticipated debut with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra and looks forward to continuing collaborations with the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Gavle Symphony Orchestra, the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra, Britten Pears Opera, Philharmonie Luxembourg premiering new works by Tonia Ko and Larry Goves, and Basel Sinfonietta with a program of contemporary works by female composers.
Cottis begins her second season as Artistic Partner of the Västerås Sinfonietta in Sweden and continues her fourth season as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Under her visionary leadership, the CSO has pioneered several important and award-winning initiatives, including a significant commissioning output, collaborations with Indigenous creators, and championing Australian composers.
Widely admired for her deep musical curiosity and affinity for new music, Cottis has conducted highly respected contemporary opera productions, including Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid’s Tale at The Royal Danish Opera, John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer for Norrlandsoperan, Jonathan Dove’s Itch at Opera Holland Park, Samatha Newton and Rachel C. Zisser’s Mamzer Bastard for The Royal Opera at Hackney Empire, Gerald Barry’s The Intelligence Park for London Sinfonietta at Linbury Theatre, and Gavin Higgins and Francesca Simon’s The Monstrous Child for Aurora Orchestra at the Royal Opera House. She acted as Music Director for Laura Bowler’s new work The Blue Woman at the Royal Opera House and looks forward to continuing her collaboration with Britten Pears Opera this year with the premiere of a new opera by Colin Matthews. Cottis has also conducted critically acclaimed productions of Verdi’s La traviata for Opera Australia, Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen for Opera Holland Park, and Verdi’s Macbeth for Norrlandsoperan.
Cottis’s early musical career was as an organist. Awarded first-class honours at the Australian National University, she continued her studies in Paris with pioneering French organist Marie-Claire Alain. After a wrist injury halted her playing career, she began conducting studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying with Colin Metters and Sir Colin Davis. She went on to serve as Assistant Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, where she worked closely with mentors Sir Donald Runnicles, Charles Dutoit, and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Hailed as the “2019 Classical Face to Watch” (The Times), Cottis was more recently honoured with the title of Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the School of Music, Australian National University.
Jessica Cottis resides in Stockholm and, outside of music, pursues her passion for butterflies all over the world.
Pianist Jonathan Biss is recognized globally for his “impeccable taste and a formidable technique” (The New Yorker). Praised by The Boston Globe as “an eloquent and insightful music writer,” Biss published his fourth book, Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven, in 2020. The book was the first Audible Original by a classical musician and one of Audible’s top audiobooks of the year.
Throughout the 2024–2025 season, Biss will continue his ongoing project pairing Schubert’s last sonatas with new compositions by Alvin Singleton, Tyson Gholston Davis, and Tyshawn Sorey, including performances at the Frederic Chopin Society in St. Paul, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Meany Center in Washington, and more. He appears with the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Xian Zhang, the BBC Symphony Orchestra led by Jakub Hrůša, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Biss will also join the Doric String Quartet for dates in Denmark before performing with Liza Ferschtman, Malin Broman, and Antoine Lederlin in Madrid, Helsinki, and throughout the Netherlands.
Biss has appeared as a soloist with some of the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and more. He has served as the Co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival alongside pianist Mitsuko Uchida since 2018. He served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music for ten years and has been a guest professor at schools such as the Guildhall SOMAD and the New England Conservatory of Music. As the author of Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven, he examines music and his life’s journey through the lens of Beethoven’s last piano sonatas.
Throughout his career, Biss has collaborated with a wide range of esteemed musicians, from Mark Padmore to Midori. In the 2023–2024 season, he joined the critically acclaimed Brentano String Quartet and double bassist Joseph Conyers for a tour of Beethoven’s late works and Schubert’s Trout Quintet. In the spring of 2024, Biss joined forces with fellow pianist Mitsuko Uchida to highlight Schubert’s four-hand piano music in a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Princeton University, and Schenectady’s Union College, following an international tour to London, Dublin, and at the Salzburg, San Sebastian, and Gstaad Festivals. An advocate of newly commissioned works, Biss most recently collaborated with composers Alvin Singleton, Tyshawn Sorey, and Tyson Gholson Davis for his Schubert commissioning project, which he presented at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, San Francisco Performances, and the Ravinia Festival in the 2023–2024 season.
Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra is praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary learning and engagement programs, and its unwavering support of Canadian creativity. The NAC Orchestra is based in Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, and has grown into one of the country’s most acclaimed and dynamic ensembles since its founding in 1969. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, engaging communities from coast to coast to coast through inclusive programming, compelling storytelling, and innovative partnerships.
Since taking the helm in 2015, Shelley has shaped the Orchestra’s artistic vision, building on the legacy of his predecessor, Pinchas Zukerman, who led the ensemble for 16 seasons. Shelley’s influence extends beyond the NAC. He serves as Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the UK and Artistic and Music Director of Artis—Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in the United States. In addition to his other conducting roles, the Pacific Symphony in Los Angeles’s Orange County announced Shelley’s appointment as its next Artistic and Music Director. The initial five-year term begins in the 2026-2027 season, with Shelley serving as Music Director-Designate from September 2025. Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds and Principal Youth Conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser complement Shelley’s leadership. In 2024, the Orchestra marked a new chapter with the appointment of Henry Kennedy as its first-ever Resident Conductor.
The Orchestra has a rich history of partnerships with renowned artists such as James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Renée Fleming, Hilary Hahn, Jeremy Dutcher, Jan Lisiecki, Ray Chen, and Yeol Eum Son, underscoring its reputation as a destination for world-class talent. As one of the most accessible, inclusive and collaborative orchestras in the world, the NAC Orchestra uses music as a universal language to communicate the deepest of human emotions and connect people through shared experiences.
A hallmark of the NAC Orchestra is its national and international tours. The Orchestra has performed concerts in every Canadian province and territory and earned frequent invitations to perform abroad. These tours spotlight Canadian composers and artists, bringing their voices to stages across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.
NAC Orchestra
First Violins
Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Marjolaine Lambert
Jeffrey Dyrda
Carissa Klopoushak
Manuela Milani
*Martine Dubé
*Erica Miller
*Andrea Armijo Fortin
*John Corban
*Soo Gyeong Lee
*Veronica Thomas
Second Violins
Emily Kruspe (principal)
Emily Westell
Jessy Kim
Leah Roseman
Frédéric Moisan
Mark Friedman
Edvard Skerjanc
**Winston Webber
Karoly Sziladi
*Oleg Chelpanov
*Renée London
*Heather Schnarr
*Sarah Williams
Violas
Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
David Thies-Thompson
Tovin Allers
Paul Casey
*Mary-Kathryn Stevens
*Sonya Probst
Cellos
Rachel Mercer (principal)
Julia MacLaine (assistant principal)
Timothy McCoy
Leah Wyber
Marc-André Riberdy
*Karen Kang
*Desiree Abbey
*Daniel Parker
Double Basses
Sam Loeck (principal)
Max Cardilli (assistant principal)
Vincent Gendron
**Marjolaine Fournier
*Doug Ohashi
*Paul Mach
*Travis Harrison
Flutes
Joanna G’froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin
*Kaili Maimets
Oboes
Charles Hamann (principal)
**Anna Petersen
*Melissa Scott
*Lief Mosbaugh
English Horn
**Anna Petersen
*Lief Mosbaugh
Clarinets
Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice
*Shauna Barker
*Ross Edwards
Bassoons
**Darren Hicks (principal)
*Marlène Ngalissamy (guest principal)
Vincent Parizeau
*Thalia Navas
Horns
*Nicholas Hartman (guest principal)
Julie Fauteux (associate principal)
Lauren Anker
Louis-Pierre Bergeron
*Olivier Brisson
*Marie-Sonja Cotineau
Trumpets
Karen Donnelly (principal)
Steven van Gulik
*Michael Fedyshyn
*Luise Heyerhoff
Trombones
*Charles Benaroya (guest principal)
*Nate Fanning
Bass Trombone
Zachary Bond
Tuba
Chris Lee (principal)
Timpani
*Paul Philbert (guest principal)
Percussion
Jonathan Wade
Andrew Johnson
*Andrew Harris
*Kris Maddigan
*Tim Francom
Harp
*Angela Schwarzkopf (guest principal)
Piano
*Olga Gross
Principal Librarian
Nancy Elbeck
Assistant Librarian
Corey Rempel
Personnel Manager
Meiko Lydall
Assistant Personnel Manager
Ruth Rodriguez Rivera
Orchestra Personnel Coordinator
Laurie Shannon
*Additional musicians
**On leave
The National Arts Centre Foundation would like to thank Mark Motors Group, Official Car of the NAC Orchestra, and Earle O’Born & Janice O’Born, C.M., O.Ont.
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Official Car of the NAC Orchestra
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees