Conductor José Luis Gomez will lead the Tucson Symphony Orchestra this weekend in the finale of its season-long ode to Beethoven.
The orchestra will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” — the eighth of his symphonies that the orchestra has programmed this season. The idea was to do all but one of Beethoven’s nine symphonies — they skipped No. 9 since they did it in 2018 and will do it again next season — to commemorate the composer’s 250th birthday.
Gomez, the TSO’s music director, paired the “Eroica” with Mozart’s lovely Concertone for Two Violins and Orchestra, featuring TSO Concertmaster Lauren Roth and Associate Concertmaster Michelle Abraham Kantor.
“Eroica” is largely regarded as the landmark symphony that bridged music’s Classical period and Romantic era, but Gomez said he saved it for last because it is “the most complete” of Beethoven’s symphonic output.
It also is the most daring, the symphony in which Beethoven ditched many of the symphonic conventions of the times and took big risks with his writing, stretching the work out to nearly an hour — twice as long as his previous symphonies — and infusing it with emotions that were absent in his earlier works.
The opening passage sets the collision course for joyful triumph and bitter despair, which is how, according to historians, Beethoven had been feeling when he wrote the work in 1803 as he tried to wrap his head around his increasing deafness. At the same time, he seemed energized with all these musical ideas that he wove into the “Eroica” with abandon, and in the process created a palpable humanity to the symphonic form that was alternately triumphant and humbling.
In the “Eroica,” Beethoven put a bigger emphasis on rhythm and dynamics, building up to thunderous heroic climaxes that transition into haunting and soothing melodies that are interrupted by horn passages that give you goosebumps on your goosebumps.
The TSO will perform the concert four times this weekend at Catalina Foothills High School.
