Beethoven: Choral Fantasy with Chorale Bel Canto on Sat. June 1 in Pasadena, CA 5/31/13

May 31, 2013

I will be performing Choral Fantasy with Chorale Bel Canto at First United Methodist Church of Pasadena on Sat. June 1 at 4pm , www.choralebelcanto.org and www.fumcpasadena.org.

It is very interesting and coincident that I am playing both Piano Concerto no. 4 and Choral Fantasy by Beethoven in the same season. I wrote the special reason behind the story on myblog about the concerto in March, and below is the quote from my blog.

“Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, was premiered in March of 1807 at a private concert of the home of Prince Franz von Lobkowitz, then the public premiere was on December 22nd of 1808 in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien. Beethoven took the stage as soloist for both occasions, and it became his last appearance as a soloist with orchestra. The concert was marathon (!) which program included Choral Fantasy, 5th and 6th symphonies, some smaller scale pieces, and Piano Concerto No. 4. It was about 3-4 hours long, and the venue was not heated (December in Vienna…)……”

I am so lucky to have this opportunity to learn Chorale Fantasy. This piece starts with piano solo for 4 minutes, I cam picture Beethoven sitting at the piano, then orchestra joins with piano, and the solo singers come in, and finally the choir joins with everybody. It is obvious that Beethoven wrote Choral Fantasy to prepare his celebrated 9th symphony. You can hear the similarity in both pieces. I am having a huge fun to study Choral Fantasy. I hope you can join me tomorrow.