Helena Symphony: Beethoven’s Emperor & Pictures at an Exhibition

The Helena Symphony will close our 70th Season with two immortal works of symphonic music, Beethoven’s Emperor
and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition:“Pictures at an Exhibition, like so much of Mussorgsky’s music, was rarely performed during the composer’s lifetime,” explains Maestro Allan R. Scott. “Mussorgsky’s then radically advanced harmonies and strange melodic twists were scarcely appreciated in his native Russia, and even less so in the West. The work was not published until five years after Mussorgsky’s death, and while it received little attention from pianists for some time, its orchestral possibilities were noticed immediately.
Mussorgsky’s piano writing is as picturesque as can be, achieving mystery, frenzy, humor, and grandeur it is a work that cries out for orchestral color.”
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4: “Part of Beethoven’s rarely seen sense of humor was a love of creating false expectations,” says Maestro Scott. “The
opening of the Symphony is just that a seemingly heavy, gloomy opening that seems to want to lead to another intense work; yet, the upbeat tempo will convey a light-hearted composition, full of joy. Throughout the movement Beethoven offers musical quirks using displaced accents, and sudden dynamic shifts to convey a light-hearted and lively mood. The traditional slower second movement tends to possess an inner glow with a steady rhythmic pulse and is one of the most beautifully constructed melodies that Beethoven ever wrote.”