According to BBC Music Magazine, 151 notable conductors worldwide named Beethoven’s “Eroica Symphony” as one of the greatest of all time.
Jay Friedman, music director of the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest, is not surprised.
“It is one of the greatest scores written,” said Friedman, also the principal trombonist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “It needs to be performed every few seasons.” Friedman will direct the Eroica and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 at the the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest’s Oct. 2 concert. Winston Choi of Oak Park will be the guest pianist.
“People come out of the woodwork to hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” said Friedman. Beethoven’s Third Symphony, called “the Eroica is just as great. It’s an absolutely revolutionary piece. The first two symphonies by Beethoven were more or less in the style of Haydn and Mozart. And then all of a sudden, this thunderbolt comes out. It’s much longer, much more involved, much more subtle and totally in a different style. It was the start of the romantic movement.”
The first movement is very expansive. It has two hammer chords (loud, full, explosive chords) at the beginning and then it has this Eflat major triad (three notes of a chord). He develops it in ways that other composers had not. He wrote a 50-minute movement out of an Eflat major triad, with all these elements going every which way, and the writing is just totally new.”
Beethoven was a revolutionary in many aspects of his life, Friedman said. “He disparaged royalty. He wouldn’t bow down to anybody. There’s a mystique about him that he was a really free thinker.”
When working on the piece with the musicians, Friedman said, “I try to instill in them that this is not just another modern orchestra performance. One of Beethoven’s key styles was the use of dynamics. Beethoven, he’s a crazy man when it comes to dynamics. He loves to have really loud sections and then all of a sudden, it drops off a cliff from a fortissimo (very loud) to pianissimo (very soft).”
The Heroic Beethoven concert kicks off the organization’s 85th year. “Celebrating 85 years is quite an accomplishment for a community orchestra,” said Beth Hoover, the symphony’s general manager and oboist.
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The first half of the program will feature Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, known as the Emperor Concerto.
“It’s one of my favorites,” Friedman said. “It is the biggest and grandest of all Beethoven concertos. It’s a monster. It’s very difficult for the pianist.”
He asked Winston Choi, with whom he teaches music at Roosevelt University, to perform the piece with the orchestra.
Symphony board president David Leehey leads a pre-concert conversation at 3 p.m., and a reception for concertgoers and musicians will be held after the performance.
Friedman has served as the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest’s music director since 1995. “It’s a great artistic challenge, a responsibility,” he said. “Our orchestra is a community orchestra. These people do this as a vocation. They love music. It’s a labor of love for everybody including me.”
Heroic Beethoven
What: Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest concert
When: 4 p.m. Oct. 2
Where: Lund Auditorium, Dominican University Performing Arts Center, 7900 W. Division St., River Forest
Tickets: $28
Information: 708-488-5000; www.symphonyoprf.com