Symphony Silicon Valley's October program this season is going to be a memorable one!

The 2014-15 season is featuring no fewer than FOUR piano concertos, all of them monumental works and pillars of the classical repertoire, and featuring some of today's most exciting and sought-after performers. This weekend, we have the first of those great works, as local musical great Jeffrey Kahane plays Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. This is Kahane's debut with Symphony Silicon Valley and his talent and this great work are not to be missed!

On the podium, we welcome back Maestro John Nelson, who is something of a mentor to Kahane, and a perfect pairing for this performance of two seminar classical composers, Beethoven and Brahms.

Help me welcome these four amazing musicians to the California Theatre!

Andrew Bales, President

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FEATURE STORY

A Great Classical Partnership!

Beethoven and Brahms (with a little work by Weber to open the concert) make up our October program. Each piece represents a great turning point in each composer's careers. The following is a short excerpt from our program notes by Peter Laki.

Barely thirty-eight years old, Carl Maria von Weber was incurably ill with tuberculosis. It had been only three years since he had achieved international fame with Der Freisch�tz, and he received a letter from Charles Kemble, manager of the Covent Garden Opera in London, commissioning an opera for the 1825 season. Weber was to conduct the opera himself. The doctors advised Weber against the journey; the composer, however, declared: "Whatever I do, whether I go or not, I will be a dead man within one year. However, if I go my children will have something to eat when their father is dead, and they will be hungry if I stay." He went to London; and the work was a triumph. Although it was written while Beethoven was still alive, it is filled with a spirit of the new Romantic era. Weber is justly regarded as the father of German Romantic opera.

The first three Beethoven concertos represent a gradual line of evolution, moving away from the Mozartian models and culminating in No. 5, the magnificent "Emperor" Concerto. No. 4 seems to fall outside that line. It is as revolutionary as the "Emperor," yet its tone is a unique mixture of cheerfulness and lyricism with occasional touches of mystery. The first movement is gentle yet extremely powerful. The finale is playful and witty yet has its dream-like moments. And in between, there is an "Andante con moto" that doesn't resemble anything Beethoven ever wrote before or after.

The first surprise in Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto occurs in the very first measure. The usual orchestral introduction is preceded by a piano solo -- a few simple chords played almost as if in a dream. The orchestra enters in a different key, eventually finding its way back to G major (the title key). More unexpected modulations in the movement lead to an expressive melody played pianissimo in the highest register. Using notes that had only recently been added to the keyboard, Beethoven contrasts the extremely high range of the melody with a left-hand accompaniment that is extremely low. The effect is magical.

In his review of the Viennese premiere of Brahms's First Symphony, the leading music critic of the day noted: "Seldom, if ever, has the entire musical world awaited a composer's first symphony with such tense anticipation." They had to wait for a long time, too. Brahms had been working on it for at least 15 years. He had shown Clara Schumann the beginning of the first movement's Allegro section as early as 1862; six years later he greeted her with the "alphorn" theme of what eventually became the symphony's finale. "The entire musical world" has been trying to understand, ever since the premiere, why it had taken Brahms so long to complete his first symphony. One possibility noted by Brahms himself was the paralyzing challenge of Beethoven's earlier masterworks. But there may have been more to it...

(To learn more, check the performance program book; or click here to read online!)

John Nelson, conductor

Beethoven & Brahms

October 25 & 26, 2014

California Theatre, San Jose, CA

Tickets $42-86

(408) 286-2600

UPCOMING CONCERTS

Mayuko Kamio

Turkish Romance

Saturday Dec 6, 8:00pm

Sunday Dec 7, 2:30pm

Tickets $42-86

The Symphony's star soloist, violinist Mayuko Kamio, returns for the third time to perform a concerto by a 19-year-old Mozart, setting a new standard of technical prowess for the violin.

Festive Holiday Fun!

Carols in the California

Saturday December 13

7:00pm

Tickets $35

The Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale presents the 10th Annual Carols in the California, an exciting and festive program! Come for the traditional sing-along of your favorite carols.

ABOUT SYMPHONY SILICON VALLEY

Symphony Silicon Valley is the professional symphony orchestra of San Jose. Founded in 2002, the nonprofit company has progressed from a daring idea to rapidly become the greater South Bay's premiere orchestra and a notable community success story. The Symphony's artists, nationally recruited, locally resident, with an average performance tenure in San Jose of over 20 years, are recognized as among the best in the greater Bay Area. Led by an exciting roster of distinguished guest conductors on the European model, the Symphony is an anchor tenant of San Jose's magnificently restored downtown California Theatre, one of Northern California's most outstanding music halls. Symphony Silicon Valley is setting an example of an innovative business model in the arts -- market driven and financially conservative, with low overhead and the flexibility to match its programming to its support base. Besides the Orchestra's core Classics programming, the Symphony's other concerts include Target Summer Pops free music festival, five diverse concerts produced outdoors on the lawn and annually bringing nearly 17,000 people out to enjoy totally free and family-friendly music; and ArtSPARK, the County's new arts education program for all elementary students in grades 3-6. This school year the program will serve 33,000 students.