Beethoven 4 & 5

Our 45th anniversary season kicks off with an all-Beethoven blockbuster. Tafelmusik’s dear friend Bruno Weil returns to Toronto to lead a program pairing the brilliant Symphony no. 4 with the iconic Symphony no. 5. 

Tafelmusik is known for incisive, trailblazing period performances of Beethoven’s symphonies—interpretations marked by an extraordinary transparency, unearthing new sounds and textures from these remarkable works. Listen as gut strings, period winds, and natural brass impart fresh colour and a sense of urgency to this powerful music.  

Thanks to our much-admired collaboration with Maestro Weil over the course of more than thirty years, Tafelmusik has performed and recorded all nine Beethoven symphonies and critics have taken note: “Weil and his players convince us that Beethoven can sound as radical in the 21st century as he must have done in the 19th” (Gramophone Magazine). 

Join us for this incredible season opener at Toronto’s original “temple of tone”, Koerner Hall.

Directed by Bruno Weil 

Guest Artists

Credits & Program

Box Office

Royal Conservatory of Music

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Running Time

1 hour 45 minutes

Style of Music

Classical (orchestral)

Koerner Hall, TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning

September 22, 2023 8:00 pm

September 23, 2023 8:00 pm

September 24, 2023 3:00 pm

Guest artists

Bruno Weil

Guest Director

Bruno Weil is world renowned as one of the leading conductors of Viennese Classicism. He has conducted leading symphony orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has conducted at the German Opera Berlin, Hamburg State Opera, Semper Opera Dresden, Glyndebourne Festival, and most often at the Vienna State Opera.

Since 1991 he has been a regular collaborator with Tafelmusik, with whom he has released numerous recordings, including the complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies. Bruno Weil was Music Director of the Carmel Bach Festival, California from 1992 to 2010, and was Artistic Director of the Klang und Raum Festival in Irsee, Germany, at which Tafelmusik was orchestra-in-residence, from 1993 to 2011.

In October 2001, Bruno Weil was appointed Professor of Conducting at the State Academy for Music and Theatre in Munich, and from 2015–2019 taught orchestral conducting at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. He is writing a book on “The lost style of the Viennese classical period.”

Credits