On Friday 21 October, Gabriel Bebeșelea takes charge of Beethoven’s joyous Eighth Symphony and Ligeti’s Romanian Concerto, a work for orchestra that is full of alpine horns and raucous Carpathian dance tunes, while Simon Trpčeski also returns to perform Grieg’s Piano Concerto. Ahead of the concert, Gabriel spoke to us about conducting the work by his countryman, as well as the link between Ligeti and Beethoven.
Tonight's programme features driving dance rhythms of Romanian and Norwegian folk music, how does it feel to take charge of Ligeti's Romanian Concerto, being Romanian yourself?
It’s a great joy to perform alongside the wonderful Ulster Orchestra this piece which is extremely close to my heart. Not only because I’m Romanian, but maybe because of a more subjective and personal reason: I was born and spent my childhood in a city 70 km away from where Ligeti himself was born and spent his childhood, and from where he gathered these astonishing Romanian folk songs and dances. What Ligeti’s doing in this ponderous as well as vivacious music is actually a description of the typically Transylvanian sound, something which always triggers a tremendous walk on the memory lane.
The musical space is very different between the Beethoven and the Ligeti you are conducting - how do you go about mitigating the dramatic shift of conducting something that is ever-shifting and changing time-wise as the Ligeti to the Romantic contrast of the Beethoven?
One might not find it immediately, but there is a very interesting connection between Ligeti and Beethoven, specifically with his Eighth Symphony - and we’re going to present it to the lovely audience in Belfast, giving our public the once-in-a-lifetime experience to become performers themselves. The second movement of Beethoven’s Eighth is basically a description of the metronome, being later transformed into a canon dedicated to Mälzel, the inventor of the metronome (by some sources by one of Beethoven’s closest disciples). In 1962, exactly 150 years after Beethoven wrote his Eighth, Ligeti composed Poème symphonique pour 100 metronomes, an experimental piece part of the Fluxus movement, about the passing of the time and mechanization, which the audience will have the chance to literally perform live during the intermission of Friday’s concert.
Apart from your concert with the Ulster Orchestra, do you have any events you are particularly looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to quite a full season ahead: concerts and tours with the Transylvania Philharmonic Orchestra and George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra - the ensembles where I’m Principal Conductor, I’m also looking forward to be reunited with our wonderful soloist from this week, Simon Trpčeski, with whom I’ll be performing in important European venues together with PKF-Prague Philharmonia. Another focus of this season is preparing for Ligeti’s Centenary in 2023 with exciting projects to celebrate his anniversary. Further events I am looking forward to are my debut in Schoenberg’s monumental Gurrelieder, as well as working with a community choir for the preparation of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Lastly, in spring I will be spending quite a long time preparing a new production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, which is always an exciting endeavour.
Gabriel Bebeșelea conducts our Evergreen Grieg concert on Friday 21 October at 19:45 in the Ulster Hall. Book tickets here: https://www.ulsterorchestra.org.uk/whats-on/evergreen-grieg/