Rochester Philharmonic’s “Massive Onslaught of Beethoven”

In Friday’s (10/17) Rochester Beacon (New York), David Raymond writes, “With different orchestras, Andreas Delfs has presented a few festivals devoted to single composers. ‘Brahms, Mozart, Tchaikovsky are all popular, but only a Beethoven Festival is guaranteed to sell out a hall,’ says Delfs, music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. That certainly is the hope of the RPO and Delfs for the last two weekends in October, when the orchestra will offer what Delfs calls a ‘massive onslaught of Beethoven.’ Or more soberly put, a Beethoven Festival: a dozen masterpieces by the world’s most popular composer in four different concerts. Each comprises an overture, a concerto, and a symphony by Beethoven. The music may be (mostly) familiar, but the festival programs have been carefully planned by Delfs. The soloists also have been carefully chosen; all of them are favorites with the RPO and its audiences.” The event runs October 23-November 1. “What accounts for the perpetual popularity of Beethoven’s music? Delfs finds inexhaustible depth and weight in works like the ‘Eroica’ Symphony; they reflect not only the numerous tragedies in the composer’s life, especially his deafness at an early age, but also his single-minded devotion to his craft and art.”