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| Symphony No.1 | Symphony No.3, "Eroica" |
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| Survey menu | Discography (this symphony) |
"In this symphony, everything is noble, energetic, proud."
Hector Berlioz
The 2nd symphony was completed in the summer of 1802. Beethoven was, at this time, first becoming aware of his impending deafness and his inner life cannot have been happy - as witness the "Heiligenstadt testament" written in October of the same year. The symphony was first performed on April 5 1803, and is - although perhaps only with hindsight is this obvious - a transitional work, which seems to have been recorded fewer times than the others (it shares this distinction with number 4).
A critic of the Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung wrote of it in 1804, that it was "full of new, original ideas and very powerful," although 24 years later, after the work's Leipzig premiere, another critic described it as "a gross abortion, an unruly writhing prehistoric monster", and in Paris in 1821 the symphony was performed severely cut, with its larghetto second movement replaced by the allegretto of the seventh - which had to be encored.
Some conductors - notably Furtwängler - felt it to be the least successful of them all, and conducted it rarely except when giving complete cycles.
As with the First, the second symphony is always to be found coupled with another symphony. The same general remarks apply.
My main recommendation would be Norrington's "authentic" version (coupled with the Eighth). This recording won the "Gramophone" award for 1986 and is a delightfully fresh and exhilarating performance.
This may be the most difficult section of all. Furtwängler is normally a safe historical recommendation, but, as I remarked above, he rarely conducted it and there is only one known recording - and that didn't surface until the late 1970s. Recorded off air (presumably) from Furtwängler's October 1948 complete cycle at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the sound is execrable. For Furtwängler completists only.
Nor can I recommend the standard Toscanini offering, the portmanteau of 1949 and 1952.
I'm going to have to think seriously about this one....
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| Symphony No.1 | Symphony No.3, "Eroica" |
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| Survey menu | Discography (this symphony) |