BEETHOVEN’S CONTEMPORARY

In 1772, two years after Beethoven, Johann Wilhelm Wilms was born in the small town of Witzhelden in the Rhineland, less than 60 kilometers from Beethoven’s birthplace of Bonn, as the son of a teacher and organist. At the age of nineteen, Wilms emigrated to Amsterdam, where he made a name for himself as a flautist, pianist and soon as a composer. From around 1806 he was so well known that his orchestral works were played in the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Schwerin, Breslau and Prague. Wilms wrote, among other things, seven symphonies, for the sixth of which he won first prize in a competition in Ghent in 1820. Wilms’ role models were primarily Haydn and Mozart, and later also Beethoven. His adaptation of his own violin concerto for piano and orchestra was published in print in 1808 at the same time as the original. Between 1810 and 1813, Gioacchino Rossini (22 years younger than Beethoven) wrote five one-act comic operas for Venice, the last of which is called “Il Signor Bruschino”. The confusing plot doesn’t play a role in our concert, but the fact that the most popular piece of music from it is the overture does. What is striking is a rhythmic motif that the second violins produce in an unusual way. The fame of Rossini’s operas, whether tragic or comic, soon attracted more audiences than Beethoven’s instrumental music, even in Vienna. As a freelance artist, he, in turn, had to make a living from his compositions and was, therefore, careful to get the most out of them. Because many violinists did not play his Violin Concerto, he created a version for piano and orchestra, which has some astonishing details.

Program:

Rossini – Overture to the Farsa giocosa “Il signor Bruschino”

Wilms – Symphony No. 6 in D minor

Beethoven – Piano Concerto op. 61a (arrangement of the Violin Concerto in D major, Anna Terokhina soloist)