Music from Malta
Researching for my recent holiday in Malta I was excited to discover they were producing ‘Aida’ at the opera house in Gozo. Sadly COVID put an end to that, but happily there was a concert available with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, a delayed finale to their Beethoven celebrations under the auspices of the Gaulitana Festival. We were invited to attend and review the concert by the conductor Colin Attard, who has a special connection to Edinburgh as both his sons studied music at Napier University. The opera house in Gozo is a perfect 19th century horseshoe opera house. There is another one just across the street, the Teatru Astra, the result of past musical rivalry. Sadly in Valletta, the capital of Malta, they haven’t rebuilt the opera house since it was destroyed in the Second World War and instead have installed an outdoor amphitheatre on the site, which has dubious acoustics. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra is the principal classical music organisation at the heart of musical life in Malta, playing regular concerts in all parts of the islands and playing for the annual opera productions. They are at the centre of the annual Gaulitana festival, which on the basis of the last complete festival programme in 2019 is highly impressive for a small country of half a million people. Malta also has a tradition of producing excellent singers, such as Joseph Calleja, who is one of the leading opera singers in the world. Colin Attard (below, left), who as conductor is very much at the heart of classical music in Malta, tells an entertaining story of how rival opera house Teatru Astra helped to launch his career early on by giving him the role of Macduff in Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’.
We were also honoured at the concert by the presence of the President of Malta, George Vella, whom we met at a reception after the concert. He was very interested to hear that when I was an MEP I was in charge of music policy, along with Nana Mouskouri, and told me the story of how the great Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, was commissioned to write Malta’s Freedom Day Hymn in 1979. The presence of the President meant that we got the Maltese national anthem twice, once at the beginning and again at the end, and I have to say that it is rather more tuneful than ‘God Save the Queen’!
The concert itself was an all-Beethoven evening, indeed one could say a heroic Beethoven evening since we began with the Egmont Overture and concluded with the Eroica Symphony, two closely linked works revolutionary in their form and their intentions. The concert marked the end of the Gaulitana Festival, which had been staged over previous weeks, but was also a belated commemoration of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary which of course had been delayed by COVID. The Egmont Overture comes from the music Beethoven wrote for the play ‘Egmont’ by Goethe, about the life of a 16th century nobleman Count Egmont whose struggle for freedom and execution led to the independence of the Netherlands. Beethoven’s overture has become one of the most famous overtures in classical music and the loud crashing opening chords becoming suffused into the lovely melody at the centre of the work is of course a work of genius. I’m not sure the Malta Philharmonic were totally together at the beginning of the overture, but Colin Attard their very lively conductor quickly had them into the swim of the work. The overture certainly warmed up the audience and prepared them for the long work that is the Eroica, indeed I timed it around 45 minutes, one of the longest symphonies regularly played. Beethoven famously dedicated the work originally to Napoleon when he saw him as a revolutionary bent on change, but when Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven furiously scratched out the dedication. The famous opening chords which lead into the melody are very similar to the form of the Egmont overture, which was written some years later, so the Eroica probably influenced the Egmont Overture. It is Beethoven’s Third Symphony and though you can find traces of influence of Mozart and Haydn in its composition it really marks the beginning of Beethoven’s period of radical innovation and is considered to be the first romantic symphony. If the Malta Philharmonic were a little hesitant at the opening of the Egmont, there was no doubt about their commitment in the Eroica under Colin Attard’s energetic conducting they gave their all, both in the solo performances and in the climactic final sessions. I have heard the Eroica many times in my long musical life and the playing of the Malta Philharmonic compared very well to much more prestigious orchestras. The socially distanced audience responded enthusiastically, for many this was their first live music experience for 18 months and they were delighted.
Malta is a small country of half a million people, one tenth of the population of Scotland yet it is independent, it is in the EU and in 2017 it was the president of the EU and conducted a general election at home at the same time. I met an old classical pianist outside the Maltese Parliament and opera house. She said, “don’t believe the English when they tell you that are you too small to be independent; that’s what they used to tell us, and we have proved them wrong”. It is clear that music and in particular classical music plays an important part in Maltese culture. Scotland has a great musical tradition in classical and in traditional music, and in the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow has one of the top Conservatoire’s in the world. It also has very good music schools in other universities. It has the traditional music school in Plockton, and a rich musical heritage in Gaelic and in jazz and pop music. I have no doubt that musically Scotland already is a nation and the evidence of Malta and other small countries is that music will flourish even more in an independent nation.
