Beethoven Symphony No. 5

Sunday Ocotber 13th at 3pm.

Roger Glass Center for the Arts – 29 Creative Way, Dayton, OH 45479

Ticket Information Coming Soon

On the Program

Verdi : Overture to La Forza del Destino

Montgomery : Hymn for Everyone

Wagner : Overture to Rienzi

Beethoven : Symphony No. 5

Our 35th season opens with overtures from two of the most recognized composers of grand opera. Both Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner gave us the greatest music ever written for the opera stage.

Verdi weaves a tragic tale of family turmoil, deadly vendetta's, and ill fated love in his La Forza del Destino. La Forza gained a reputation for being cursed due to several tragic incidents at performances. This superstition affected Luciano Pavarotti to the extent that he never performed the tenor role.

Wagner's Rienzi is based on the life of the Roman politician Cola di Rienzo. Elected to lead a revolt against the nobility who ruled over the land, Rienzi eventually became corrupt himself and despised by the people he once championed, met his fate as the populace burned down the Roman Temple of Jupiter.

Jessie Montgomery won a 2024 GRAMMY for her composition Rounds, which was commisioned by our own Principal Conductor, Awadagin Pratt for his latest album Stillpoint. For this concert, Pratt has selected Montgomery's Hymn for Everyone to compliment the overtures.

Beethoven composed his fifth and sixth symphonies at the same time, which is hard to imagine considering the contrasting mood between the two. The famed line "Thus fate knocks at the door!" came from Beethoven's biographer, Anton Schindler, rather than the composer himself. The rhythmic opening expression (. . . -) has become synonymous with Beethoven's name for generations. If fate knocks on the door in the first movement, then triumph opens it in the emotional culmination of all that has come before.