Given the fame of the event involved, the sparsity of recordings reconstructing it is surprising. This double-disc set presents the music the audience would have heard on May 7, 1824, when a Beethoven "Akademie," really more of a benefit concert for the composer himself, was held in Vienna. The concert included the world premiere of the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, which featured the touching spectacle of the completely deaf Beethoven, billed as assistant conductor, beating time oblivious to the fact that the music ...
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Given the fame of the event involved, the sparsity of recordings reconstructing it is surprising. This double-disc set presents the music the audience would have heard on May 7, 1824, when a Beethoven "Akademie," really more of a benefit concert for the composer himself, was held in Vienna. The concert included the world premiere of the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, which featured the touching spectacle of the completely deaf Beethoven, billed as assistant conductor, beating time oblivious to the fact that the music had ended and the audience was applauding. One of the soloists plucked his sleeve and turned him around toward the crowd. The concert didn't go off without a hitch; Viennese censors protested the presentation of the mass text in a secular concert hall, which the presenters got around by billing the three movements of the Missa Solemnis, Op. 123, as "Three Hymns." That terminology is retained on the cover of this release, which opens with the overture Die Weihe des Hauses, Op. 124 (The...
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