In the 2019-20 season, San Francisco Symphony has 7 programs featuring his works. We have to wait a couple of months to see what's up for 2020-21, where presumably incoming music director Esa-Pekka Salonen has had some input. Over at Philadelphia, they're programmed all of the symphonies and piano concertos, plus the violin concerto.
I seriously considered boycotting all programs featuring Beethoven, but two days later I accepted a review that includes the second piano concerto, so that went right out the window. But I'd urge everyone to consider it, in the interests of pressuring orchestras to use more imagination in their programming. I mean, in the last decade, SFS had a three-week Beethoven Festival and a two-week Beethoven and (Mason) Bates Festival. In the festival year, there were 25 Beethoven works performed!
SFS used to have composer-focussed seasons in which they'd have a two-week festival focussed on a living composer. Remember the George Benjamin year? I do! Why can't we have this kind of programming again? The more you play the top-ten composers, the fewer composers get to be heard. There's a tremendous amount of crowding-out with top-ten programming.
There will always be chances to hear Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc., etc. It's really time for classical music to stop with anniversary-driven programming.
Here are a few other commentators on the Beethoven anniversary year:
- Andrea Moore in the Chicago Tribune
- Musicology Duck suggests a listening challenge (Yes, Musicology Duck, the best water fowl on musicology Twitter!)
- Musicologist William Gibbons neatly summarizes the problem.
- Composer Elaine Fine takes a different tack.
- My comments to conductor Ken Woods
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