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Category Archives: Vienna’s Musical History
Day 7 – Attending Performances in Morning and at Night
The first full day of the UNCG trip had two performances. I usually don’t like scheduling two musical events in a day, but the opportunity was there, so we took it! Our morning started in the Imperial Chapel to hear … Continue reading
Posted in Trip Blogs, Vienna's Musical History
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Day 6 – UNCG students arrive in Vienna
Today, at 11:10am, twenty excited UNCG students (plus a faculty member and his wife) arrived in the Vienna Airport for the start of eight fun and musical days in Vienna. Of course, after three flights and little sleep, they looked … Continue reading
Posted in Trip Blogs, Vienna's Musical History
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Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony
During the summer of 1811 Beethoven’s health was suffering, and under his doctor’s orders he traveled to the Bohemian spa town of Teplice. There he began his Seventh Symphony, completed in the spring of 1812. Evidently the recuperative period produced … Continue reading
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
The Fifth Symphony did not begin public life auspiciously. It was composed in fits and starts from 1804-1808 as Beethoven’s deafness grew, against the looming threat of the Napoleonic Wars and Napoleon’s 1805 occupation of Vienna. The premiere in 1808 … Continue reading
Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont
Political allegory finds potent artistic manifestation in Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont. When Beethoven composed the overture and incidental music to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Egmont between 1809 and 1810, Europe was engulfed in the Napoleonic Wars (1800-1814), during which … Continue reading
Beethoven’s Third Symphony
Some years before he composed his Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”), Beethoven is said to have declared to a friend, “From this day forth I shall forge a new path.” Composed in 1803-1804, the “Eroica” manifests one of the striking examples … Continue reading
Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony
The most infrequently performed of his nine symphonies, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 has suffered comparative neglect. Positioned between the tremendously celebrated Symphonies Nos. 3 and 5, the work was depicted by Robert Schumann as “a slender Greek maiden between two … Continue reading
Beethoven’s Overture to Prometheus
At the invitation of Italian choreographer and librettist Salvatore Viganò, Beethoven composed music for Viganò’s ballet Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus), premiered for Empress Maria Theresa at the Vienna Court Theater in 1801. Beethoven’s first work for … Continue reading
Beethoven’s 5th Symphony and its problematic first performance
When a piece of music is considered a masterpiece, it frequently receives numerous performances by well-rehearsed orchestras in the world’s finest concert halls. But what is often true is that these great works started their musical lives in less than … Continue reading
Posted in Classical Music and Performers, Greensboro Symphony Classical Concerts, Vienna's Musical History
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Beethoven’s Leonore and Fidelio Overtures
Beethoven wrote many overtures. Some were as stand-alone pieces, some were as incidental music, and several were for the various versions of his one opera. One overture for Leonore (later Fidelio) was not enough, and whenever he modified the opera, … Continue reading
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