Beethoven. Fate Symphony

Artists:

• Lidiia Futorska, violin
• Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra
• Serhii Khorovets, conductor

Program:

• Ludwig van Beethoven.
  • Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67
  • Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, op. 61

Just four notes — that’s all Beethoven needed to create one of the most fateful and monumental musical associations in history. Four sounds, brilliantly combined, formed a sequence later known as the “fate motif.” These very notes open the Symphony in D minor, a piece that has served as a gateway into the world of classical music for countless listeners. It is truly a work that’s hard to remain indifferent to.

Even setting aside the sentimental attachment to the composer — who began to lose his hearing in his thirties and, amidst the Napoleonic wars, fought a personal battle with fate — the symphony captivates with its thematic contrasts and turbulent energy. These traits were so intrinsic to Beethoven himself that Symphony No. 5 has come to be regarded as a musical portrait of the composer. He devoted a remarkable amount of time to this work — four years — unlike his Violin Concerto in D major, completed just days before its premiere.

This contrast in Beethoven’s musical vision is precisely what the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Lviv National Philharmonic, under the baton of Sergiy Khorovets, will present. Although the Violin Concerto contrasts the symphony in mood, it too opens with a rhythmic timpani introduction. Beethoven composed it for the young Franz Clement — a virtuoso whose talent the composer once described as, “Nature and art competed with one another to make him a great artist.”

However, it wasn’t until much later that the piece achieved triumph and recognition among Europe’s greatest violin concertos, thanks to Felix Mendelssohn and Joseph Joachim, who revived it from obscurity and brought it back to the world stage.