Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Mass in C Major

We join Carnegie Hall’s season-long celebration of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th Birthday with four theatrical, audacious, and exhilarating lesser-known works by the composer. Beethoven’s sweeping and dramatic Leonore Overture No. 2 stole the show when his only opera, Fidelio, was first performed in 1805, prompting him to revise the overture four more times. As a stand-alone work, the Leonore Overture No. 2 is an operatic tone poem in its own right. Meerestille und glückliche Fahrt (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage) is Beethoven’s setting of two poems by Goethe as a cantata for chorus and orchestra, here featuring the extraordinary choral ensemble La Chapelle de Québec. The unusual scoring of the Choral Fantasy makes it one of Beethoven’s most opulent and exciting works, combining the forces of piano soloist Jeremy Denk, a quartet of vocal soloists including soprano Karina Gauvin, mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor, Andrew Haji, bass-baritone Matthew Brook, and full chorus. The program comes to a riveting conclusion with Beethoven’s transcendent masterpiece, the Mass in C Major, originally written for the Esterházy family.