The Rest Is History
527. Beethoven: Napoleon and the Music of War LIVE at the Royal Albert Hall
02 Jan 2025
Full Episode
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Please welcome back to the stage Tom Holland and Dominik Sandberg. Welcome back, everybody. Always start the second half with a banger, they say. And that, of course, was the banger to end all bangers. The first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony premiered in December 1808 in Vienna.
And Dominic, the opening of that movement must be the most famous opening to any piece of music ever written, I'd have thought.
Absolutely.
So, we have had Mozart, and the second half is about a very different character, someone who is brooding, unfriendly, difficult, and... And here he is... ..to talk about Ludwig van Beethoven. Dominic, take it away. Uh...
When I wrote that joke, I knew you would laugh. So, Tom, you ended with Mozart's death and funeral in 1791. No great send-off, a slightly lackluster occasion. And let's start by fast-forwarding three decades to March 1827, to the death and funeral of his great successor Ludwig van Beethoven. And it's a completely different scene. As Beethoven lies dying, also in Vienna,
Presents, cash, cakes are coming in from all over Europe. Beethoven's last recorded words greet the arrival from Mainz of a case of his favorite Rhineland wine. And his last words were, pity, pity, too late. And then he died. And when he did die on the evening of the 26th of March, it was the news story of the year.
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