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  • Description

    Beethoven delved into the symphonic genre rather late in his life. He was already 30 years old when he achieved his first Symphony (1800), after a long preparatory period. The reason is, he is then facing two imposing influences of the genre, Mozart and Haydn, and is not considering a frontal approach yet.

    His innovations are surreptitiously disturbing symmetries, intensifying dynamics and disrupting rhythms. His Symphony No. 3 (1805) will decisively settle the typical Beethovian style, something perfectly reflected in the title “Eroica”.

    This is the emergence of a different relationship to dramatic scansion of pure music and to the temporal development of “historical” powers (as we could qualify them).

    Between these two movements of the Creation of Symphony, the Symphony No.2 found the right balance, a miracle too often neglected: it overcomes the ambivalent reaction to tradition to better assert the freedom of an event yet to come.

    Maynard Solomon, who wrote major essays on Beethoven, described it as “a both retrospective and prospective work”.


    The Paris Opera Orchestra

    A coproduction Opéra national de Paris - Telmondis
    In association with ARTE France and M_MEDIA /ClassicAll TV
    With the support of Pierre Bergé, patron of the symphonic concerts of the Paris Opera Orchestra and of the Orange Foundation, patron of the audiovisual broadcasts of the Paris Opera
    With the support of the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée

    Director: Vincent Massip
    © Opéra national de Paris - Telmondis - 2014

    Picture: © Jean-François Leclercq / OnP

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