ERSO opens centenary season with Beethoven’s Fifth

Estonian National Symphony Orchestra opened its 100th season with a programme featuring Heino Eller, Robert Schumann and Ludwig van Beethoven, ERR reported in a review originally published by Sirp. The concert featured South Korean pianist Yekwon Sunwoo and conductor Olari Elts.

The programme opened with Eller’s symphonic poem “Dawn”, once a customary choice for the orchestra’s season-opening concert. The performance was more powerful, energetic, mobile and lively than usual, with beautiful solos by Guido Gualandi and Peeter Sarapuu. The first violin section, led by concertmaster Triin Ruubel, played the yearning romantic theme with strong inner conviction.

Eller’s work was once regarded as a symbol of Estonianness. Written in the year the Republic of Estonia was founded, the poem represents not only the beginning of a new day in a beautiful natural landscape, but metaphorically the beginning of freedom and a new era, as well as the awakening of the Estonian people.

Sunwoo, a 37-year-old South Korean pianist with numerous competition victories, was the soloist in Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor. He demonstrated outstanding technical ability, giving the work a clear and brilliant sound while retaining its necessary poetry and power.

The reviewer noted that Sunwoo used less pedal than usual at times and placed too much emphasis on the left hand, which the orchestra was already doubling. He fully came into his own in the energetic finale and in his encore, Rachmaninoff’s “Moment musical” in E minor, Op. 16 No. 4. Both were performed brilliantly, masterfully and captivatingly.

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, performed at the centre of the concert, is one of the best-known works in music history. According to Beethoven’s secretary, Anton Schindler, the composer described the four-note opening motif as “fate knocking at the door” while he was losing his hearing.

The review also discussed another interpretation of the motif. In the 2016 British documentary “The Secret of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony”, English conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner argues that it is unfounded to connect the symphony and its main theme with the personal tragedy of Beethoven’s life.

Gardiner says the opening motif was not entirely Beethoven’s own creation, but was borrowed from “Hymne du Panthéon”, or “Pantheon Hymn”, by Italian composer Luigi Cherubini, who lived in France. Completed in 1794 and inspired by the French Revolution, Cherubini’s work uses the famous “knocking” rhythm alongside the words: “We all swear, weapon in hand, to die for the republic and human rights.”

Gardiner’s version draws on a theory by musicologist Arnold Schmitz. To support it, journalist Ian Hislop, one of the documentary’s co-authors, visits places where Beethoven lived in Bonn and Vienna. Beethoven’s fascination with the French Revolution is widely known.

The Estonian National Symphony Orchestra is due to tour South Korea with Sunwoo in September, giving three concerts.