Program notes, December 4 & 5, 2009
Symphony No. 8 in F Major, op. 93 (1812)
Triple Concerto in C Major for Piano, Violin and Cello, op. 56
(1804)
Beethoven’s life as a composer is usually divided into three parts, the Early, Middle and Late Periods. Symphony No. 8 and the Triple Concerto fall within the Middle Period, from 1803 to 1814.
During this time, Beethoven came to grips with his increasing deafness, a devastating condition that nearly caused him to end his life. He chose instead to accept his fated deafness and continue to be the musical artist as best he could.
It is said his compositions of the Middle Period have a heroic quality that reflects his supreme struggle with the reality of his growing deafness. But can we legitimately say his music is “heroic”? Does that mean anything when we are enthralled, while listening to his works, with the sheer beauty of his orchestral sounds?
I think it is fair to say that Beethoven’s works from his Middle Period are different from his Early Period, certainly more complex, perhaps requiring a second or third hearing to understand. But the term “heroic” distracts us from hearing the Master’s gorgeous melodies and passages that lead us on into worlds more beautiful than we could ever conceive existed.
Listening is the key; the question is, how to listen? When Beethoven gave a performance, if he heard people chatting he would stop playing, stand up and leave. The Master knew what great attention was needed to appreciate the music.
So perhaps the how-to-listen query is answered by concentrating on what is aurally in front of us. Is the orchestra loud, soft, mysterious, strident? Does a particular melody catch us up with its indescribable beauty or perfection? Do certain chord progressions and rhythms make us move with them in our seats?
Beethoven spent his life creating this world of beauty in sound, so that we could live in it for a time. He saw the beauty; he presented it to us. We only need to grasp it.
Symphony No. 8 was first performed on Feb. 27, 1814, in the Vienna Theater concert hall. a
Carl Czerny, a contemporary of Beethoven, wrote in his memoirs that the debut performance of Symphony No. 8 “failed to please, which angered Beethoven a great deal.” The composer felt his 8th symphony was “much better” than the audience response indicated.
In Beethoven’s own Vienna, the much-performed Pastoral Symphony No. 6 – also in F Major – eclipsed Beethoven’s other F Major symphony, No. 8. It wasn’t until 1850 that the 8th began to take its rightful place in the classical music repertoire.
The Triple Concerto was first performed in Leipzig, Germany, in 1808. At that time, Beethoven was continuing to dare to do things that hadn’t been done in quite the same way before. A review of the performance read, “We heard an entirely new Concertino by Beethoven, but it did not find its mark.”
However, it speaks for the critic’s objectivity, and indicates the complexity of Beethoven’s music, which was then breaking the bounds of convention and singling him out as an avant-garde composer, that the notice went on: “It is, however, well known that one can seldom give a definite judgment on Beethoven’s compositions at first hearing: I shall not, therefore, say any more about this Concertino until we have heard it several times.” The next performance in 1830 was a great success.
Program notes by Horace Work
Soloists' biographies
Andrea Arese-Elias, piano
 Andrea Arese-Elías, a native of Argentina, made her recital debut at age 11, and her orchestral debut at age 14 with the Cordoba National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina.
She earned her undergraduate degree from the National University of Cordoba and completed her master and doctoral degrees in piano performance at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music.
She has also participated in workshops and master classes with pianists Rosalyn Tureck, Gerhard Oppitz, James Tocco and Alfonso Montecino.
Dr. Arese-Elías has performed extensively as a solo and chamber musician in Argentina, Mexico, El Salvador, Japan, and the U.S. She has won many piano competitions, prizes, and scholarships.
As a winner of the Cincinnati´s College-Conservatory of Music concerto competition, she was invited to play under the baton of Cincinnati Symphony conductor, Jesus Lopez Cobos. She was a soloist with the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra in the 2000-01 and 2003-04 seasons, and was invited to appear as a soloist with the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria in 2003.
Dr. Arese-Elías has previously taught for the National University of Cordoba, Cordoba Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati Preparatory Department and College-Conservatory of Music, and Mesa State College. She now has a private teaching studio in Grand Junction.
She is a founding member of the Mesa State Faculty Trio and Trio Las Americas and performs regularly with her husband, Carlos Elias, as the Elias Duo. Their CD, Let's Tango, was awarded Best of the Best on eMusic.com in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Carlos Elias, violin
 Carlos Elias, conductor and artistic director for Symphony in the Valley, began his musical studies at the age of 5 at the National Center of Arts in his native San Salvador.
Since 2000, he has been a member of the faculty program at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, where he directs the strings and orchestra program. Mr. Elias also serves as concertmaster of the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra.
After graduating from high school in San Salvador, he came to the United States to continue his music studies. He graduated magna cum laude from Biola University in California in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in violin performance. He earned his master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, in 1993, and an artist diploma from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in 1999.
He plays a 1985 violin by the late American maker Sergio Peresson.
Mr. Elias has performed in solo recitals and with orchestras in the United States, El Salvador, Argentina, Bulgaria and Japan.
He won the Biola University Concerto Competition in 1988 and 1989, and took second place in the El Salvador Violin Competition in 1985. In 1986, he represented El Salvador at the World Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Lorin Maazel.
Prior to his posting at Mesa State, he taught music at the National Center of Arts in San Salvador and was a violin instructor for the Sendai Philharmonic Junior Orchestra in Japan.
He has been a member of the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra in Sendai, Japan, the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra, Erie Philharmonic, Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, and was the assistant concertmaster of the El Salvador Symphony Orchestra.
He has also participated in a variety of music festivals in Colorado and around the world, including the Aspen Music Festival, Western Slope Music Festival in Crested Butte, Music in the Mountains in Durango, Congress of Strings in Detroit, Sarasota Music Festival in Florida, Raphael Trio Chamber Music Workshop in Vermont, Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Affinis Music Festival in Nagano, Japan, and Corsi Internazionali di Musica in Italy.
He and his wife, pianist Andrea Arese-Elias, gave their New York debut at Weill Hall in Carnegie Hall on March 28, 2002.
Susan Salm, cello
 Susan Salm has been hailed by critics as "a cellist of great significance” with a "brilliant and deeply moving” performance style. From her base in New York City, she performs in the United States, Europe and Africa as a soloist and with the Raphael Trio.
Ms. Salm received her early musical training in her native Chicago and later studied at the Juilliard School in New York with Leonard Rose and Harvey Shapiro, and in the master classes of Pablo Casals, Gregor Piatigorsky and Pierre Fournier. As prizewinner of the coveted Concert Artists Guild Award, Ms. Salm was presented in her New York debut at Carnegie Hall in 1979.
She has appeared as soloist with major orchestras, including l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the BBC Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony, Orchester der Frankfurter Museumsgesellschaft, Orchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks, Bruckner Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony, playing under the batons of conductors Leonard Slatkin, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Otmar Suitner, Gunter Wand and Erwin Ortner.
She has participated in international music festivals as a soloist and chamber player, including the Wiener Festwochen, Vienna Mozart Festival and Klangbogen in Vienna; the Spitalfields and Sheffield Festivals and the Wigmore Hall Beethoven Festival in the United Kingdom; Montepulciano Cantiere d’Arte and Cortona festivals in Italy; and the festivals of Budapest and Berlin. She has performed at U.S. festivals in Saratoga, Newport, Marblehead, Dartmouth, Ouray, Aspen, Angel Fire, the Beethoven Festival of San Francisco, Chenango, and Juneau Jazz and Classics.
Ms. Salm records frequently for the BBC, ORF in Vienna, German Radio, Hessisch Radio, Radio France, Zurich and Basel Radio, Brussels Radio and the Suisse Romande, as well as for National Public Radio in the United States. Ms. Salm has recorded for Nonesuch, Sonar, Newport Classic, EMS, Unicorn, ASV, Discover, SNE and SONY.
A dedicated chamber musician, she is a founding member of the Raphael Trio and has collaborated with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Cleveland and Emerson string quartets. She gives master classes and chamber music courses at universities and conservatories. In the days prior to this evening’s concert, she taught master classes for cello students at Mesa State College in Grand Junction.
Her work has also inspired the modern composers Dina Koston, Wolfgang Florey, Laura Kaminsky and Rainer Bischof to write solo works for her to perform.
Ms. Salm’s scheduled performances later this month include concerts with the Raphael Trio in New York and Washington, D.C., and the Italian premiere, in Venice, Italy, of an unaccompanied cello work written for her.
More information about Ms. Salm, including press reveiews and her schedule of concert appearances, can be found on her website, www.susansalm.com.
Kirk Gustafson, guest conductor
Kirk Gustafson is music director and conductor of the Grand Junction Symphony, an accomplished cellist, and a lecturer in the music program at Mesa State College.
Critics call him “a conductor of elegant exactness” with “tremendous passion for music.”
Gustafson received his formal training from the University of Colorado and the University of Washington, where, as a Boeing Fellow, he earned his Doctorate of Musical Arts in opera and orchestra conducting.
Active as a guest conductor, Gustafson made his international conducting debut this past summer with the National Orchestra of El Salvador. He has appeared with the Littleton, Rogue Valley, South Dakota, Southwest Illinois, Salt Lake and Idaho Falls symphonies, the Boulder and Arapahoe philharmonic orchestras, Arvada Chamber Orchestra. He served as assistant conductor for the Colorado Festival Orchestra for eight seasons.
Mr. Gustafson is credited with bring the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra to a new artistic level since he took the orchestra’s baton in 19XX. Gustafson’s accomplishments with the orchestra include a strong commitment to artistic growth, diverse programming of orchestral masterworks never before performed in Grand Junction, and the inception of the Musician’s Training Fund, a fund devoted to further the training of orchestra musicians.
Mr. Gustafson is deeply committed to the education of young musicians and was instrumental in starting the Grand Junction Symphony’s Young Artist Competition. Each spring, under his leadership, the Grand Junction Symphony presents Springfest, a program that sends chamber music ensembles from the symphony to elementary schools across the Grand Valley to demonstrate their instruments and play short classical works.
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