Beethoven’s Eroica

A most heart-stirring concert awaits you, portraying vastly different approaches to grief and memory. In the “Eroica,” grief turns into fury, when the original dedicatee, Napoleon, crowns himself emperor and the enraged Beethoven now celebrates only “the memory of a great man.” From two bolts-out-of-the-blue chords to exhilarating finale, the Symphony’s majesty and drama, extraordinary scope, and bold harmonies all proclaim a new era in music. Turning his grief into sorrow, Berg inscribes his heartbreaking Concerto, sensitively performed by our concertmaster, “To the memory of an angel”—a vivacious 18-year-old girl struck down by polio. He paints her portrait in the first movement, and, in the emotional heart of the Concerto, incorporates Bach’s chorale, “It is enough; Lord, if it pleases you/Unshackle me.”