Beethoven
Freedom & Fate

Alain Altinoglu

Ludwig van Beethoven reigns supreme over the first concert of the season

 G G G, E flat … This short motif, among the most memorable in the history of music, opens Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Often associated, apocryphally, with the image of ‘fate knocking at the door’, these four notes became, for the composer, the driving force behind countless dramatic effects, by turns tempestuous, lyrical, playful or triumphant.

Written around the same time, the Piano Concerto No. 4 is often described as one of Beethoven’s most poetic works. Besides several ingenious touches that lend the instrument a refreshing spontaneity, and the evocation of Orpheus taming the Erinyes at the gates to the Underworld in the second movement, the concerto is distinguished by an exhilarating combination of grandeur and intimacy.

Contrasts abound in the Coriolan Overture too, which illustrates with no less acuity both Coriolanus’s determination to invade Rome and his mother’s tenderness as she pleads with him to abstain …

Accompanied by the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and virtuoso pianist Seong-Jin Cho – named Musician of the Year 2025 by Opus Klassik – Alain Altinoglu kicks off, a little ahead of time, the commemorations of the bicentenary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s death with a programme exploring two of his most cherished themes: the power of fate and the aspiration for freedom.