Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The Coriolan Overture was first performed in March 1807 at the palatial home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz. If only a time-warp could transport us to that event where the overture was a mere curtain-raiser. In the same concert, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto and his Fourth Symphony also received their premières. As it turned out, this was the penultimate appearance of Beethoven as a piano soloist. It was appropriate that the overture was played at a concert rather than in a theatre because the play that should follow was not Coriolanus by William Shakespeare but a now wholly neglected work by Heinrich Joseph von Collin based on the same shadowy legend. The play withered; the overture prospered. In Shakespeare’s version, the drama builds to a tragic climax stemming from an insoluble moral dilemma faced by the Roman General, Coriolanus. Circumstances force him to make a decision that he knows will betray his allies or his family. His resolve to save his family in response to the pleading of his wife and mother leads to his brutal murder or, in von Collin’s version, his improbable suicide.
Although Beethoven’s overture does not narrate the story of the play, it suggests the agony and gravity of the moral cleft stick in which Coriolanus finds himself. The dark C minor tonality immediately plunges the listener into an unsettled world. Although glimpses of calmer waters are offered, the work ends with a sense of foreboding. Some have associated the more lyrical passages with the women, the more turbulent passages with Coriolanus’s mental torment. The overture has been pored over by many a distinguished eye and ear, not least those of Richard Wagner and the great musicologist, Sir Donald Tovey. Both were certain that Beethoven composed the overture with Shakespeare’s play rather than von Collin’s in mind. They suggest that the evident passion in the music could only be matched by the soaring poetry of the Englishman rather than the insipid prose of the German. These comparisons are no longer crucial because the work now stands alone as a sublime yet disturbing masterpiece.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The Coriolan Overture was first performed in March 1807 at the palatial home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz. If only a time-warp could transport us to that event where the overture was a mere curtain-raiser. In the same concert, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto and his Fourth Symphony also received their premières. As it turned out, this was the penultimate appearance of Beethoven as a piano soloist. It was appropriate that the overture was played at a concert rather than in a theatre because the play that should follow was not Coriolanus by William Shakespeare but a now wholly neglected work by Heinrich Joseph von Collin based on the same shadowy legend. The play withered; the overture prospered. In Shakespeare’s version, the drama builds to a tragic climax stemming from an insoluble moral dilemma faced by the Roman General, Coriolanus. Circumstances force him to make a decision that he knows will betray his allies or his family. His resolve to save his family in response to the pleading of his wife and mother leads to his brutal murder or, in von Collin’s version, his improbable suicide.
Although Beethoven’s overture does not narrate the story of the play, it suggests the agony and gravity of the moral cleft stick in which Coriolanus finds himself. The dark C minor tonality immediately plunges the listener into an unsettled world. Although glimpses of calmer waters are offered, the work ends with a sense of foreboding. Some have associated the more lyrical passages with the women, the more turbulent passages with Coriolanus’s mental torment. The overture has been pored over by many a distinguished eye and ear, not least those of Richard Wagner and the great musicologist, Sir Donald Tovey. Both were certain that Beethoven composed the overture with Shakespeare’s play rather than von Collin’s in mind. They suggest that the evident passion in the music could only be matched by the soaring poetry of the Englishman rather than the insipid prose of the German. These comparisons are no longer crucial because the work now stands alone as a sublime yet disturbing masterpiece.