I had a pleasure of attending a concert by the New York Philharmonic in the morning of last Friday. This was the first time I went to a classical music concert in the morning, but it was same impressive and high standard. The concert was conducted by David Zinman. The New York Philharmonic was celebrating a month of Modern Beethoven festival, in which Beethoven’s symphonies were played. It was a privilege to be able to take a half day off, with the benefit of student ticket, while enjoying the Beethoven’s music. Today, the concert program opened with Beethoven’s Symphony no. 1, followed by Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s “Concerto funebre for Solo Violin and String Orchestra,” a 20th century concerto,  and finished by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3.

New York Philharmonic, found in 1842, is one of the oldest symphony orchestra in the world. Their previous music directors included Leonard Bertstein, Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel. Their current music director, Alan Gilbert, is a native New Yorker. He injects the orchestra with some freshness, youthfulness and vital feeling to his programs. He brings his own music to life.

Both Hartmann’s concerto and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 are related to the tyrants at the time when the piece was composed. Hartmann composed his concerto in 1939, when Hilter was a dictator of Nazi Germany. The rise of the Nazi party made a lot of people suffering. Hartmann mentioned that he had no hope of future. He included all his thought, sad feeling in his piece. Beethoven originally named his Symphony no. 3  after the name Napoleon, whom he believed would be an enlightened ruler and would bring social enlightenment to France. However, when Napoleon had accepted himself as a emperor, Beethoven was so disappointed as there was no difference between Napoleon and the other dictators. He therefore changed the name of his symphony to “Eroica,” which means a hero. For Hartmann’s piece, I like the first movement only but not the remaining because I still do not know how to appreciate modern period music.

Beethoven was the composer who fell between Classical period and romantic period. From his Symphony no. 1, we could see the root of the classical period, following the style of Haydn or Mozart. From his Symphony no. 3, we could see that he was a creative composer. He was the first composer to make symphonic use of the march in the 2nd movement.

I listened to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 before the concert in video of the performance by Wiener Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In my opinion, this video is very wonderful, almost perfect. It is hard for the real performance to go beyond the video that I watched. However, David Zinman’s real performance is such a high mastery. He is a master of Beethoven’s works. His interpretation is clearness, never overly done. I like mostly the second movement, “Marcia funebre.” It gave me a feeling of Napoleon’s army marching.

I have not finished listening all Beethoven’s Symphonies. After attended this concert, I would like to listen all this romantic composer’s symphonies works.