The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra welcomes back pianist Olga Kern to play Beethoven’s first piano concerto, a work written when Beethoven was just forging a reputation in his adopted hometown, Vienna. Then it is on to an amazing piece that is a true landmark music history, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

The Concerto No.1 was performed for the first time at another Viennese concert on December 15, 1795. It was finally published—probably with revisions—in 1801, with a dedication to one of his aristocratic patrons, Princess Barbara Odescalchi.

In both of his early concertos, Beethoven was clearly working within the Classical outlines laid out in the concertos of Mozart and his teacher Haydn. However, there is a power and expansiveness in these works that is pure Beethoven, particularly in the Concerto No.1. Much of this character must have come from Beethoven’s own character as a soloist. We know, for example, that he favored extreme dynamic contrasts—in fact, he seems to have destroyed more than one of the rather delicate fortepianos of the day with his forceful attacks! His personality comes through in the many contrasts to be found in the Concerto No.1: from pianissimo to fortissimo, from simple melodies to flashy passage-work, and from cool gentility to emotional flourishes.

The premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is infamous as the scene of a riot. An open dress rehearsal on the day before had been well-attended and uneventful, but on opening night, the jeers and catcalls began almost immediately, followed quickly by cries of “Ta guele!” (“Shut up!”). Twenty years later, Stravinsky remembered:

“During the whole performance I was at Nijinsky’s side in the wings. He was standing on a chair, screaming ‘sixteen, seventeen, eighteen’—they had their own method of counting to keep time. Naturally, the poor dancers could hear nothing by reason of the row in the auditorium and the sound of their own dance steps. I had to hold Nijinsky by his clothes, for he was furious, and ready to dash on stage at any moment and create a scandal. Diaghilev kept ordering the electricians to turn the lights on or off, hoping in that way to put a stop to the noise. That is all I can remember about that first performance.”

Why were they so upset? The riot seems to have been the work of a small group, a clacque who came determined to disrupt the performance. The main objection was probably to Nijinsky’s revolutionary choreography. (Parisians took their ballet seriously.) But according to biographer Stephen Walsh: “…the music might well have merited a riot. Certainly it was to remain the most notoriously violent score of a time when huge, noisy orchestras and harsh dissonance were more or less commonplace appurtenances of the new music.”

The 2024/25 Symphonic Series season is presented by United Grain Corporation.