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Beethoven and Mozart: Virtuosity and Brilliance
Beethoven and Mozart: Virtuosity and Brilliance
In our season opening concert, Peter Bay conducts three works whose composers answer what they have inherited. José Carlos Campos’s Danza rústica sets indigenous South American rhythm within the European orchestral tradition, in four compact minutes. Steven Moeckel is the soloist in the only violin concerto Ludwig van Beethoven completed, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, built on the French virtuoso style of Viotti and his followers. Beethoven wrote it for Franz Clement, a violinist known for grace and expressive line, and its virtuosity lives in sustained tone and long singing phrases.
The “Jupiter,” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 and his final symphony, pairs ceremonial brilliance with wit and lyricism. Its finale takes four notes from Fux’s centuries-old manual and builds them into exhilarating counterpoint that sounds invented on the spot.
Admission
- Tier 1: $69.00
- Tier 2: $54.00
- Tier 3: $28.00
- 21 and under: $10.00
- K–12 teacher with ID: $15.00
Thursday October 1, free: Peter Bay and timpanist Maria Flurry trace Mozart from the first symphony to the Jupiter.
Works on the program:
- José Carlos Campos: Danza rústica
- Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551, “Jupiter”
Peter Bay has served as conductor of Arizona Philharmonic since 2018. He is also Music Director and Conductor of the Austin Symphony Orchestra and Resident Conductor of the Piano Texas Festival. Bay has appeared with more than 80 orchestras, including the National, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, Baltimore, and Fort Worth symphonies, and has held music-director posts with the Erie Philharmonic, Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, and several music festivals. He is also the primary conductor for Ballet Austin.
Violinist Steven Moeckel has performed as concerto soloist, concertmaster, chamber musician, and recitalist throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. A Laureate of the Sibelius Competition, he has appeared with orchestras in repertoire ranging from the major classical and Romantic concertos to works by Shostakovich, Corigliano, Elgar, Britten, and Walton. He was the first Western violinist invited to perform The Butterfly Lovers concerto with a Chinese orchestra and has collaborated with musicians including Leon Fleisher, Menachem Pressler, William Wolfram, and longtime recital partner Paula Fan, with whom he has performed the complete Beethoven violin sonata cycle three times.
Moeckel has deep ties to Arizona, having served as Concertmaster of both The Phoenix Symphony and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. His other concertmaster positions have included Germany’s Ulm Philharmonic and the Santa Fe Opera. A graduate of the Hochschule Mozarteum in Salzburg and Indiana University, he joined the faculty of Northern Arizona University in 2020 as a tenured Professor of Violin. He is also active as an educator, orchestral coach, and advocate for string teaching, and serves as artistic director of the Oxmoor Farm International Chamber Music Festival in Louisville, Kentucky.
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