# Beethoven's First Symphony



## Hartmut (2 mo ago)

Greetings! Was Beethoven's Symphony No.1 well recieved at it's first performance?


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Hang on, I'll go and ask him. 🤭

Seriously... like nearly all Beethoven's concerts the Burgtheater 'akadamie' gig was an incredibly long affair with excerpts from other composers' works ( 2 slices of Haydn and a symphony of Mozart's) before Beethoven premiered 3 works - the 1st piano Concerto (Beethoven scholars believe) the septet and the 1st symphony. There's very little recorded otherwise about the event apart from an obscure comment years later from Czerny saying that Beethoven introduced himself to the people of Vienna that night (which tells us nothing). Otherwise there's the words of Haydn's friend, Greisinger (a Beethoven enthusiast), who reported that the event was "truly the most interesting concert in a long time", and that the new symphony possessed "considerable art, novelty and richness of ideas". What others thought we don't know as concert reviews were still in their infancy. I wonder if Ludwig did any crowd surfing? 🤟


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Welcome. Questions like this are best asked in the general classical music forum. Moving it there.

I also edited your title for clarification.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

If only we had the internet back then, we'd have the whole range of opinions about it.


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## Hartmut (2 mo ago)

Merl said:


> Hang on, I'll go and ask him. 🤭
> 
> Seriously... like nearly all Beethoven's concerts the Burgtheater 'akadamie' gig was an incredibly long affair with excerpts from other composers' works ( 2 slices of Haydn and a symphony of Mozart's) before Beethoven premiered 3 works - the 1st piano Concerto (Beethoven scholars believe) the septet and the 1st symphony. There's very little recorded otherwise about the event apart from an obscure comment years later from Czerny saying that Beethoven introduced himself to the people of Vienna that night (which tells us nothing). Otherwise there's the words of Haydn's friend, Greisinger (a Beethoven enthusiast), who reported that the event was "truly the most interesting concert in a long time", and that the new symphony possessed "considerable art, novelty and richness of ideas". What others thought we don't know as concert reviews were still in their infancy. I wonder if Ludwig did any crowd surfing? 🤟


Thankyou for this information!


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## Hartmut (2 mo ago)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> If only we had the internet back then, we'd have the whole range of opinions about it.


Yes, I agree. Thankyou


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