Symphoniker Hamburg / Ion Marin

Music as a mirror and a reflection of the soul and of the world! This concert opens with Beethoven’s Second Symphony – evidence of the composer’s early creative and expressive power. Beethoven himself conducted the premiere in the Theater an der Wien in 1803, and one reviewer commented: »It is the work of a ›fire-demon‹ and will remain long after a thousand celebrated fashions have been carried to their graves.« The symphony betrays no sign that Beethoven was afflicted by existential worries during the period of composition or that he fled the hurly-burly of the city – in vain – in the hope of alleviating his hearing impairment in the Viennese suburb of Heiligenstadt, where he composed his shocking »Testament«: no, he produced a work that positively bursts with life!