Symphony #3 "Eroica" Ludwig van Beethoven Vienna Philharmonic

[elleng]

https://weta.org/listen-live

[First Speaker]

1. Thank you for your posts...especially this one...

...they make the Lounge a much more civilized place, which it certainly needs... I've often wondered what it must have been like to have been in the audience the first time the Eroica was played. Here was something utterly revolutionary, unlike anything ever heard in the world before. If I had a time machine, that would be one of my first destinations...

[elleng]

2. You're welcome!

Hebrides is/was one of mine

and Pastorale

Beethoven's 250th Birth Anniversary is this year, and I celebrate him every day!

[Jeebo]

4. Have you seen the movie "The Soloist"?

Jamie Fox plays the title character, a street musician who often plays the theme from the first movement of the "Eroica" symphony on his cello. Robert Downey Jr. plays the newspaper reporter who starts writing a series of articles about him, discovering that he is a gifted musician who went to Juilliard. There's one scene in that movie that I'll never forget because it so profoundly connects with me personally. It's the scene where Fox and Downey are at the Hollywood Bowl watching a rehearsal performance of that symphony. In a voiceover Downey talks about the experience of sitting next to Fox and seeing how he interacts with that music. Downey says that he likes that music too, but that there is something profoundly deep and personal about the way it touches Fox. That scene connects with me because that symphony, especially the first two movements, affects me that same way. It's probably my favorite music ever that I've ever heard, in fact. Also the "Pastoral" symphony, and the first two movements of the seventh symphony, and the Sibelius fifth, and the Mahler second and fourth. Those are my faves.

-- Ron

[First Speaker]

5. Love that film!

...and I agree with you on all your favorites...would add Brahms' Second and Fourth, and Sibelius' Second...

[TristanIsolde]

3. The symphony that changed everything