Symphony highlights Austrian greats

While Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the most popular composers of his era, his contemporary Franz Schubert toiled in relative obscurity: Both men were equally prolific writers, but while Beethoven made a career through commissions and public performances, a majority of Schubert’s compositions went unpublished during his lifetime.

This weekend, the Spokane Symphony pays tribute to these two great Austrian composers with pieces that were written when both men were in the earliest stages of their individual repertoires. Symphony conductor Eckart Preu says the compositions he’s chosen offer an interesting snapshot of two influential figures in flux.

“Both pieces were written by fairly young men in their early 30s, and they both reflect the musical past and the musical future,” Preu said. “You can hear (the influence of) Mozart and all the old traditions, but you can also see the foreshadowing of what will become of Beethoven. … There’s a very interesting tension there.”

The program opens with Schubert’s unfinished Symphony No. 8, which consists of two complete movements. Historians have debated the reasons Schubert never finished the piece – many believe that sketches of the final movements ended up in other works – and he had been dead for nearly 40 years when it was first discovered and publicly performed.

“Even though it has only two movements, it has a very interesting, unusual ending,” Preu said. “But I wouldn’t really wait for the third movement to come along necessarily. I actually like the unfinished part. The scope of those two movements is huge. It’s longer than the Beethoven symphony, and that’s Beethoven we’re talking about.”

Beethoven is represented here with his Symphony No. 2, written at the birth of the 19th century just as his hearing loss was beginning to worsen. The piece marks the end of Beethoven’s early period, and he would soon develop the more radical style that made him one of the most significant figures in classical music.

But simply because Beethoven was the more popular of the two composers doesn’t discount Schubert’s influence: They reportedly rubbed elbows during their richest creative periods and died a year apart, but Schubert’s greatness wasn’t really recognized while he was alive.

“If Schubert had lived a little longer and had been a little more famous, music history would have been rewritten and maybe would have gone in a totally different path,” Preu said. “That’s what intrigues me. From this common path, it goes in two different directions: One was a dead end – that would be Schubert – and then Beethoven shaped music history from then on.”

In between the Schubert and Beethoven pieces is modern Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s “Ludus,” a minimalist piece that stands in stark contrast from the more bombastic, romantic work of those great Austrian composers.

“It’s only 10 minutes long, but it actually seems either longer or shorter for some reason,” Preu said. “If it grabs you, it feels very short, because it puts you in this world above the clouds. … It lifts you out of reality, whereas Beethoven and Schubert are really rooted in reality. So you lift off, and then with Beethoven you come crashing back down.”