Chamber music concert by the NOVA Chamber Music Series with works by Beethoven, Schoenberg, Hearne and Schumann inspired by Beethoven's relationship with Napoleon.
The Napoleon Complex comes to Libby Gardner Concert Hall on Sunday, January 31, 2027, at 3 PM. It's part of the NOVA Chamber Music Series, also known as the Libby Gardner Series, and the program brings together works by Beethoven, Schoenberg, Hearne, and Schumann.
The whole afternoon is built around Beethoven's complicated relationship with Napoleon Bonaparte. It started with great admiration and turned to complete disdain, mirroring the composer's own views on democratic freedom and his disillusionment with tyranny. That arc runs through the music, too. Arnold Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon is a powerful protest against absolutism set to the poetry of Lord Byron, and Beethoven's String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95 'Serioso' was written shortly after Napoleon's occupation of Vienna.
Between those two, you'll hear pieces by Hearne and Schumann, so the program spans a fair bit of ground. The Beethoven quartet is one of his more intense, stripped-down works, and pairing it with Schoenberg's protest gives the afternoon a clear through-line rather than just a random collection of chamber pieces.
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It's a Sunday matinee, so you're in and out in the afternoon. The concert is at Libby Gardner Concert Hall, 1375 Presidents' Circle, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, starting at 3 PM.
Date
Sunday, 31 January 2027
15:00
Location
Libby Gardner Concert HallRecommended Age
+14 years
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