Loading Events
This event has passed.
Masterworks

BEETHOVEN’S 9TH

April 29, 2022
7:30 pm

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs is a choral work which heavily features a baritone soloist in four of the five songs. Based on poems set to music, the verses are largely spiritually derived. While the first four maintain a tone of a deep introspection, the concluding fifth song “Antiphon,” lifts like a triumphant hymn.

Rapturous. Colossal. Legendary. These are all apt descriptions of one of the most well-known pieces of music of all time. In it, you experience sounds on a grand scale and voices like nothing else heard before or since. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony —his last—was a success from the very beginning.

The Ninth Symphony premiered in 1824 at a concert conducted by the composer, who at this point had lost his hearing. Its opening movement softly rumbles in anticipation and then builds to erupt; the second movement is lively but intense, and never shallow; the third is intimate, deliberately slow; the fourth movement ushers in a raucous fanfare, and attempt to return to earlier themes, and finally culminates victoriously with a united powerhouse of chorus, soloists, and musicians.



For Your Safety: Click here to learn about health and safety protocols for in-person concert attendance. As of March 2, 2022, masks are now optional for performances at the Gaillard Center.

All ticket sales are final. No refunds will be issued. Thank you for your understanding.