PROGRAMME NOTES Beethoven Symphony No 1 30’ INTERVAL 1 Beethoven Symphony No 9 (Choral) 70’ J Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN C MAJOR, OPUS 21 (1800) 1. Adagio molto - Allegro con brio 2. Andante cantabile con moto 3. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace 4. Finale: Adagio - Allegro molto e vivace Beethoven’s First Symphony was presented to the Viennese musical world on 2nd April 1800 in a concert planned by Beethoven. This concert included the first performance of his Septet, Opus 20 and his Piano Concerto in C. The concert opened with an unspecified symphony by Mozart and also featured an aria and a duet from Haydn’s Creation. Thayer’s Life of Beethoven includes a Contemporary review: 'Finally on one occasion Herr Beethoven took over the theatre and this was truly the most interesting concert in a long time. He played a new concerto of his own composition, much of which was written with a great deal of taste and feeling. After this he improvised in a masterly fashion, and at the end one of his symphonies was performed in which there is considerable art, novelty and a wealth of ideas. The only flaw was that the wind-instruments were used too much, so that there was more harmony [wind music] than orchestral music as a whole.’ (Correspondent of Allgemeine Musikalishche Zeitung, April 1800) Beethoven had initially tried his hand at composing a symphony as early as 1787, possibly inspired by the first performances of Haydn’s Paris Symphonies in Vienna that same year. The sixteen-year-old Beethoven had visited Vienna early in 1787 where he had his one and only brief meeting with Mozart. The Sketches for this C minor symphony were soon abandoned and it was not until the mid-1790s that Beethoven turned his thoughts again to producing an orchestral symphony. He was perhaps daunted by the three late symphonies of Mozart composed in 1788, and then the twelve London Symphonies by his teacher Haydn from the early 1790s. However, his solo piano sonatas and early chamber compositions were offen Symphonie in scope, regularly adopting the four-movement structure of the Contemporary orchestral symphonies; thus he had bürst onto the Viennese musical world with his three Opus 1 Piano Trios, shortly followed up by the three Piano Sonatas, Opus 2, all six works Symphonie in layout and aspiration. It appears that the first sketches for the First Symphony date from 1795 and most of the first three movements were well developed between 1795 and
