Ravel & Beethoven


The Seattle Symphony hosted a concert called Beethoven & ravel on November 25th , 2019. There were four groups that performed at the concert, String Quartet No.2, Oboe Trio in C Major, and Trois Po`emes de st`ephane Mallarm`e. The concert performed pieces from Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Ravel, and Dvorak.













History:
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Felix Mendelssohn was a composer that was born in Germany on 1809, he played the piano, organ, and was a conductor. He played the piano from a young age and was taught by very well-known teachers during that time that had studied under amazing figures of music. He created many pieces over the course of his life, one of his most popular pieces was A Midsummer Nights Dream. Here is a performance of his piece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geiGhHR1-Wo When Mendelssohn was nine, he has his first every public concert. He played chamber music, normally his performances where private at home with his very wealthy parents. He started to compose music when he was in his early teen years.
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Ludwig Van Beethoven was also a German composer who was born in 1770. He was also a pianist like Mendelssohn. However, Beethoven made huge impacts in the classical music industry, he was the tradition from the classical era to the romantic eras. His father was his first teacher in music, as a young child he showed a lot of talent for music. Beethoven was very skilled in playing the piano, he was scouted by the Prince of Lichnowsky for his compositions. Through out his life he gained reputation and popularity because of his composition. They were (and still is) popular during those times, since his composition were so new and unique. As he grew older his hearing started to decline after the incident were, he was angered after being interrupted when he was composing. One of his popular pieces that is well known even today is Fur Elise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mVW8tgGY_w
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Maurice Ravel was born in1875, he was a pianist and a conductor, he was also a French Composer. He was known as one of the best composers in France. He was from a family that loved music though they were not musicians, nor did they study much music in any way. His father was an engineer/inventor but had knowledge of music and his mother was a housewife. It was assumed that Ravel was taught by his father since there was no record of his education. Though he started piano lessons with a hired teacher. The style of Ravel was a mix of baroque, neoclassicism, and a mix of jazz. Though it was later in life that he started to incorporate jazz into his pieces. One of his most well-known pieces is Bol`ero. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZDiaRZy0Ak
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Antonin Leopold Dvorak was born 1904 and was the first Czech composer to be noticed by the world during the time. Unlike the other composers he was not a pianist, but he was a violinist. When he was older, he wanted to be more well known through the world and started to participate in different musical competitions by sending in his symphonies. Dvorak was noticed by Johanne Brahms when he entered the Austrian State music competition because Brahms impressed with Dvorak, he recommended Dvorak to a publisher that would help him share his music with the people. His work became very popular and was highly praised.  One of his popular works is his Cello Concerto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-YiERbdGsQ


One of the things I loved about the concert that I attended was the quartet that played in the beginning. The performance was beautiful and so much emotion and energy went into performing the piece by the performers. It was amazing to witness professionals play the piece by Mendelssohn. One thing I found out after the concert was that I was not a huge fan of winds or brass. I am more of a string’s kinds of classical music listener. I feel like winds can be a bit harsh, though the performances by the Oboe trio was still very beautiful and full of emotion. I really love opera singing, this was the first time witnessing this type of classical music. Maria Mannisto had the most beautiful voice I had ever heard, it was so smooth, but so full of emotion. I took some pictures of the set up of the performance before the performers came out.

The set was very simple and comfortable. The audience were very quiet and didn’t clap at all during the performance. Only when the performance ended did people clapped or started to shout. I was surprised as to how they knew when the piece didn’t end yet and it was only some rests within the piece. A lot of the listeners during the performance were people much older than my age, but they were really nice and friendly.

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