Ludwig van Beethoven

I’ve been an admirer of Beethoven’s symphonies since early childhood, as my father regularly played Bruno Walter’s recordings of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. The odd-numbered symphonies are much more famous than their even-numbered siblings, so my choice of the eighth symphony as a favourite may be unusual; but it is easily the most humourous of the nine symphonies – Beethoven described the mood of this work as ungeknopft: unbuttoned. The last movement in particular is full of instrumental jokes and unexpected harmonic and rhythmic turns.

The eighth symphony is the second of three symphonies which he planned to compose in 1812; the third came to nothing. It is curious to learn that the opening movement may have originally begun as a piano concerto, according to the earliest sketches. The tempo of this movement is that specified by Beethoven himself several years later in an article in 1817, and is noticeably faster than almost all speeds adopted by conductors in the concert hall.