Kent Nagano Explores Modern History With Beethoven

For some people, Beethoven may be old history, but for others, he is more alive than ever. Renowned conductor Kent Nagano and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal (OSM, Montreal Symphony Orchestra) bring ``Beethoven: Ideals of the French Revolution’’ (Analekta), a new album that illuminates the Rwanda crisis in 1994 through Beethoven’s music.

``(When) people ask who is your favorite contemporary composer, I usually give three names: Beethoven, Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach,’’ Nagano told reporters last week during his first visit to Korea. The OSM gave two memorable concerts _ the first time in 11 years.

``Somehow (their) music has a meaning in challenges we face in 2008. Sometimes there’s a danger that these great pieces are played so often they feel routine,’’ he said. ``It’s important for (musicians) and the public to look for context and various illuminations of Beethoven’s music,’’ said the Japanese-American conductor about his first recording with the OSM.

He shared how the project came about. ``The night before my daughter saw a Hollywood movie called `Beethoven’ (about a dog whose name is Beethoven) and that evening on TV, I saw an advertisement for an automobile and the background music was Beethoven’s 5th _ I was furious. I asked the question, we should all ask ourselves, what is Beethoven? Is Beethoven a brand name? Or a marketing tool? Soundtrack? Or box office guarantee?

``I felt we should construct our project in Montreal a little bit differently,’’ he said.. ``Beethoven was very aware of current events. He knew the modern ideas of the French Revolution: principles of democracy, freedom and equality and the right to express yourself,’’ he said.

In addition to the 5th Symphony, the 2-CD album includes ``The General,’’ an entirely new interpretation of Beethoven’s ``Egmont,’’ itself based on a poem by Goethe. It is a piece for orchestra with soprano, choir and narrator.

```Egmont’ is usually performed in one of two ways: either as musical excerpts or with some fragments of Goethe played. Both of course are not ideal because the music was written to accompany a theatrical drama,’’ he said.

``The themes in the Goethe play are very contemporary: cultural misunderstanding, conflicting of class, international tensions, war, oppression and corruption. Of course these themes are here today on the first page of the Herald Tribune; they’re part of our world today. This is why instead of taking the original Goethe play, we took a recent episode of history,’’ he said. And so, the track features a new theater piece by Paul Griffiths about the Rwanda crisis in 1994.

``Our hope is that listeners will experience Beethoven’s 5th (Symphony) with `Egmont,’ that one has a contact with a passion of Beethoven’s time, because we can feel that what lies within Beethoven’s music is what surrounds us today,’’ he said.

``Beethoven: Ideals of the French Revolution’’ is currently available in CD stores.