Beethoven’s 1808 benefit concert was one of classical music’s most remarkable evenings: it featured four premieres, including the 5th and 6th symphonies and the 4th piano concerto, and lasted four hours. Yet, in this recreation of that freezing December night in Vienna’s Theater an der Wien – six months before Napoleon invaded the city for the second time – it was not just the event’s scale that created the impact, but the sense it engendered of a genius at work. For the St David’s Hall audience, the buzz came from being part of something where history was being relived, giving substance to the Beethoven 250th celebrations. Here, it took two each of orchestras, conductors and pianists to realise what Beethoven – composer, fixer, conductor and soloist – effectively achieved alone.
Beginning with the Pastoral Symphony No 6 – Carlo Rizzi conducting a storm in its thunderous 4th movement with the Welsh National Opera Orchestra – the programme’s faithfulness to the original happily didn’t extend to replicating the many inaccuracies that Beethoven grumbled about. Soprano Alwyn Mellor brought heft to the high tessitura of the concert aria Ah, Perfido!
In the 4th piano concerto, soloist Steven Osborne balanced transcendent calm with fierce energy and elan. Osborne also gave due attention to the repeated notes which, in the concert’s second half, then emerged with maximum force in Jaime Martín’s reading of the 5th symphony with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Martín’s passionate gestures lent a touch of Beethoven the conductor.
Llŷr Williams was the second pianist to embody Beethoven the soloist: bringing every phrase wonderfully alive, he made the Op 77 Fantasia in G minor and the Choral Fantasy sound better works than they actually are. The BBC National Chorus of Wales, with a quartet of solo singers, had made glorious sounds in movements from the Mass in C major, but it was in this finale with its portent of the Choral Symphony that Beethoven the humanitarian came through. In his music, he aspired to make the world a better place and, for these few hours, he did so.
• Available until 18 February on BBC Sounds.
