Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with or without choreography
By Peter Alexander May 15 at 5:48 p.m.
The end of the concert season is prime time for orchestras to tackle the big works.
Toward the end of the 2024–25 season, in Boulder County we’ve had the Longmont Symphony presenting J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Boulder Chamber Chorale, and the Boulder Philharmonic with the full Boulder Chorale presenting Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. And now conductor Devin Patrick Hughes and the Boulder Symphony step up with their own choral forces for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on the weekend.
You can have your performance with or without choreography. The Ninth Symphony will be presented in partnership with Kim Robards Dance in a performance titled “Unstruck Sound” on Saturday (7:30 p.m. May 17 at the Waymire Dome in Brighton; details below). A second performance of the music alone will be presented by the orchestra and chorus Sunday (4 p.m. May 18 at Grace Commons in Boulder; details below).
Both performances will be conducted by Hughes, who is Boulder Symphony’s music director. Soloists for the symphony’s finale are Kyrie Laybourn, soprano; Kristin Gornstein, alto; Cody Laun, tenor; and Graham Anduri, bass. The performances will open with the Overture in E minor of the 19th-century French composer Louise Farrenc.
The last symphony that Beethoven completed, the Ninth was written over two years, 1822–24. Both its length—an hour or a little more—and the fact that it includes a chorus in the final movement marked it as a unique and radical work from its every first performance in Vienna. The concluding choral movement, based on Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy,” has made it a first choice for celebrations around the globe.
It is also regarded as the culminating work in Beethoven’s career. The composer had expressed an interest in setting the “Ode to Joy” as early as 1792, an idea that can therefore be said to have occupied his thoughts for most of his life. Set in the somber key of D minor, that symphony progresses from a mysterious and powerful first movement, to a turbulent and disquieting scherzo, a beautiful and placid slow movement and the joyous choral finale in D major.
The work’s premiere in May of 1824 is one of the most famous performances in history. The nearly totally deaf Beethoven stood next to the conductor, watching the players and indicating tempos. At the end of the performance, the composer was unable to hear the tumultuous applause from the audience, and the alto soloist had to come forward and lead him to the edge of the stage so that he could see the response.
The Symphony was perhaps most famously performed by in Berlin with Leonard Bernstein conducting on Christmas Day 1989, with the text of the finale altered to an “Ode to Freedom” as a celebration of the removal of the Berlin Wall. That was an international event, but the Ninth Symphony is selected for all kinds of major occasions, because of the text that celebrates the brotherhood of man. As such, it is also viewed as the ideal piece for the end of a season.
Farrenc studied composition at the Paris Conservatory in the early 19th century, at a time when women had to study privately as they were not allowed to enroll in composition classes. Equally accomplished as a virtuoso pianist and composer, she became the first women teaching at the Conservatory, when she was appointed professor of piano in 1842. She held that position for 30 years. As a composer she wrote works for piano and chamber music, as well as three symphonies and two concert overtures.
Kim Robards Dance describe themselves as a “professional, multi-generational modern dance company.” The company was founded in Denver in 1987. A performance in New York was praised in the Times for “old-fashioned virtues, like a strong sense of craft and an affinity for lyrical movement and big musical scores.” There are fewer bigger scores than Beethoven’s Ninth, which has rarely if ever been danced.
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Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
Chorus directed by Dana Vachharajani
With Kyrie Laybourn, soprano; Kristin Gornstein, alto; Cody Laun, tenor; and Graham Anduri, bass
- Louise Farrenc: Overture in E minor, op. 23
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125
7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 17
Waymire Dome, 9755 Henderson Rd., Brighton
Performance with Kim Robards Dance, Kim Robards, choreographer
4 p.m. Sunday, May 18
Grace Commons, 1820 15th St., Boulder
(Musical performance only)
Sharps & Flatirons 