The closing Masterworks concerts of the Quad City Symphony's centennial season included a commission meant as a prelude leading, without pause, into Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I was skeptical. The Choral symphony - one of the greatest compositions in music - was a logical conclusion for a season-long celebration of 100 years, but attaching contemporary music to it raised two questions: What could the new music possibly add, and would it diminish Beethoven's towering work?
Yet James Stephenson's A-ccord worked on several levels April 11 at the Adler Theatre. It successfully connected Beethoven to 21st Century musical thinking. More importantly, it neatly summarized the rigor and thoughtfulness of Music Director and Conductor Mark Russell Smith's highly symbolic program - which presented a unified message bridging time, style, and language, and ceded the spotlight to guest vocalists as the Quad City Symphony closed its milestone season.
A-ccord brought all that together, featuring both voices and instruments, placing an English translation of Friedrich Schiller's "Ode" (a component, in German, of the Ninth Symphony) alongside words from Quad Cities poet Dick Stahl, and treating Beethoven's source material in a contemporary way, with an innovative use of a single melodic line with rhythmic and orchestral variations.
