The sixth Bostonian Bravo concerts of the season – entitled Beethoven’s Triple Concerto – will be performed on Thursday March 3 and Friday March 4 at 8 p.m. in Southam Hall. These concerts feature conductor Pinchas Zukerman leading the NAC Orchestra and three extraordinary female musicians who hail originally from Edmonton. Amanda Forsyth, principal cello of the NAC Orchestra, Jessica Linnebach, Associate Concertmaster of the NAC Orchestra, and pianist Angela Cheng, who is consistently cited for her brilliant technique, tonal beauty and superb musicianship make up the Wild Rose Trio, which takes its name from a residential neighbourhood in South East Edmonton. 

The concert features:
SCHUBERT         Overture in the Italian Style, C major, D591
SCHUBERT         Symphony No. 5
BEETHOVEN      Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano, Op. 56, “Triple Concerto”

This concert will be recorded by CBC Radio 2 for later broadcast.

PRE-CONCERT MUSIC – Le Salon, 7 p.m.
2008 NAC Orchestra Bursary winner, flutist Amelia Lyon

It has been said that Beethoven composed his Triple Concerto in 1803 at the behest of one of his students, 16-year-old Archduke Rudolph von Hapsburg-Lothringen of Austria, and that it was composed with the Archduke (whose skills were limited at that time), and two distinguished musicians, violinist Carl August Seidler and cellist Anton Kraft, in mind. The Archduke became an accomplished pianist and composer under Beethoven's tutelage, as well as a lifelong friend -- but there is no record of Rudolf ever performing the work. Presumably there was a private performance in Vienna shortly after the concerto was completed, but the first public performance did not take place until five years later. When it came to be published, the concerto bore a dedication not to Rudolph, but to a different patron, Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian Fürst von Lobkowitz.

Cellist Amanda Forsyth says, “This is, of course, … a concerto, a chamber piece, and an orchestral piece. Therefore it is extremely important to be playing with musicians that you know very very well, as chamber musicians. This is the case, completely, with Angela and Jessica...because we have toured extensively and have performed together in so many different concert halls. So the element of musical trust is very much a solid feeling. The slow movement is something I will sing in my head whenever I am in a stressful situation, as my "calm down theme" and I recall the feeling I have when playing it, so lush and beautiful, and full of emotion. It is truly a gorgeous movement …”

In November of 1817, at the age of twenty, Schubert wrote in close succession two overtures “in the Italian style” inspired by the operas of Rossini, which were all the rage in Vienna at the time. The first public performance of one of the two Italian-style overtures (we do not know which one) took place in Vienna on March 1, 1818. This event also marked the first public performance of any of Schubert’s music. The first confirmed public performance of the Overture in C major, “in the Italian Style,” D. 591 occurred posthumously on March 23, 1830, conducted by the composer’s brother, Ferdinand Schubert.

Enchanting, delicate, exquisite, delightful, and graceful are terms often used to describe Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485, which does indeed seem to capture all the charm and spirit of our idealized vision of carefree, nineteenth-century Vienna. We know now that life was anything but carefree for Schubert but that does not diminish the pleasure this symphony proffers. Schubert’s Fifth Symphony was first played in the autumn of 1816, shortly after Schubert completed it. He probably never heard the work again. Both score and orchestral parts were lost after Schubert’s death and did not resurface until years later. The first known public performance did not take place until 57 years after the symphony was written, at London’s Crystal Palace in 1873. It was thanks to two Englishmen -- Sir George Grove and Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame), who had been searching for lost Schubert manuscripts -- that the symphony was “found” at all.

The NAC Orchestra performs Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Southam Hall of the National Arts Centre on Thursday March 3 and Friday March 4 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20.45, $31.21, $42.51, $53.81, $64.57, $75.33, and $94.17, for adults and $11.38, $16.76, $22.41, $28.06, $33.44, $38.82, and $48.24 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card). Tickets are available at the NAC Box Office (in person) and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at 613-755-1111; Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC’s website www.nac-cna.ca.

Subject to availability, full-time students (aged 13-29) with valid Live Rush™ membership (free registration at www.liverush.ca) may buy up to 2 tickets per performance at the discount price of $12 per ticket. Tickets are available online (www.nac-cna.ca) or at the NAC box office from 10 a.m. on the day before the performance until 6 p.m. on the day of the show or 2 hours before a matinee. Groups of 10 or more save 15% to 20% off regular ticket prices to all NAC Music, Theatre and Dance performances; to reserve your seats, call 613-947-7000, ext. 634 or e-mail grp@nac-cna.ca.

For additional information, visit the NAC website at www.nac-cna.ca

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Information:
Gerald Morris
Communications Officer, NAC Music
613-947-7000, ext. 335
[e-mail]  gmorris@nac-cna.ca