deFilharmonie - Philippe Herreweghe

Beethoven's Fifth and Eighth Symphonies together in the same concert: it is not such a self-evident combination but it is an elucidating one. After all, this programme makes it clear that a composer's stylistic development does not always run in a straight, logical line. And that a later work does not necessarily take the achievements of an earlier masterpiece as the starting point for further development, not even in the case of such a genius as Beethoven. However, this does not mean that the Eighth Symphony, composed in 1812 and at first sight much less progressive, is by definition the programme's weaker half. In this work Beethoven bids farewell to the symphonic ideal of a past generation - the classical symphony as had been developed to perfection by Haydn and Mozart. At the same time this earlier symphonic ideal is the starting point for a surprising parody, as in the coda in the last section which is blown up out of all proportion. In his Fifth Symphony, written in 1807, we hear a Beethoven bitterly in earnest: this work, as a continuation of the Third Symphony, was a highly personal musical drama without words.