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Munich Symphony Orchestra: Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos 5 & 6conducted by Joseph Bastian

A painting of Ludwig van Beethoven writing in a music book with a pen. Above it are several banners announcing the event.
Copyright: München Musik

This coming Easter, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of its principal conductor Joseph Bastian, will present all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies in a series of concerts in quick succession, allowing audiences to experience the entire evolution and fascinating radiance of the composer’s symphonic oeuvre. The fact that Beethoven died on 26 March 1827 – exactly 200 years before the performance dates of this cycle – lends this “opus magnum” a particular historical significance.

This coming Easter, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of its principal conductor Joseph Bastian, will present all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies in a series of concerts in quick succession, allowing audiences to experience the entire evolution and fascinating radiance of the composer’s symphonic oeuvre. The fact that Beethoven died on 26 March 1827 – exactly 200 years before the performance dates of this cycle – lends this “opus magnum” a particular historical significance.

They are Beethoven’s primary musical legacy: the nine symphonies, composed over a period of 25 years, during which he explored the full spectrum of compositional possibilities offered by the “royal discipline” of symphonic composition. Among the great composers, Beethoven was the first to complete nine symphonies; others were to follow – Dvořák, Bruckner and Mahler – who also composed nine symphonies each.

The mystique that surrounds this incredibly diverse cycle of works – from the First, influenced by Haydn and Mozart, to the monumental Ninth – is one thing. The other is that it shaped what came thereafter – and hence the history of music – like no other cycle. It is that very quality that continues to fill us with wonder and delight whenever we encounter Beethoven’s symphonies.

Programme

  • Beethoven: Symphony No 5 in C minor, Op 67, Schicksals-Sinfonie
  • Beethoven: Symphony No 6 in F major, Op 68, Pastoral

With

  • Joseph Bastian, conductor
  • Munich Symphony Orchestra

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