On this day in 1808, one of the most famous concerts in musical history took place in Vienna.
Ludwig van Beethoven premiered four monumental works at Theater an der Wien: his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Fourth Piano Concerto, and the Choral Fantasy. Beethoven conducted the historic program and was both pianist and conductor for the concerto and Choral Fantasy.
In celebration of these premieres, we share with you a clip of Leonard Bernstein conducting the @Vienna Philharmonic / Wiener Philharmoniker in the opening of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. (Avaible through Unitel)
https://www.facebook.com/ViennaPhilharmonic
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I do like to let music be music, and I'm a big fan of Bach, Beethoven, and Vivaldi, but there is a line of historical opinion that traces Hitler's favorite music - Wagner - to historic roots. Some describe some of the pieces as heavy, dark, Germanic heroism. I don't know, I'm no afficionado. But I did see Pavarotti once!
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Hitler's record collection is melodious and puzzling
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2007/aug/08/hitlersrecordcollectionism
"It is strange - and rather disturbing - to discover how important classical music was to two of the most genocidal monsters of the 20th century, Hitler and Stalin. The latter was supposed to have been personally responsible for the cultural persecution of Soviet composers, insisting on his own vision of how music should edify the masses.
Hitler's love for the pan-Germanic operas of Wagner is well-known - as is the fact that the Wagner family were among his earliest and most vociferous supporters. But until now, there has been little discussion of his other musical tastes. This week, however, Der Spiegel published details of a few of the 100 or so classical recordings reportedly found in Hitler's bunker at the end of the war, and secretly kept by a Russian intelligence officer who died recently.
It is an interesting list. Wagner is there, of course - but so are several Russian works (Hitler described Russians in general as "subhumans"
, and recordings by Jewish artists such as the violinist Bronislaw Huberman and pianist Artur Schnabel. Strange - but perhaps not inexplicable. The Russian works so far listed are all the products of 19th-century Russian (rather than Soviet) composers, giants such as Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov. All the works listed are deeply melodious and emotionally accessible - creating a beautiful world in which Hitler could bury himself as his own life crumbled.
The presence of Jewish artists in the collection is puzzling - but again perhaps not a complete mystery. For a start, if the works by Tchaikovsky and Beethoven recorded by Huberman and Schnabel were particular favourites of Hitler's, he may have been stuck with those (marvellous) performances; there was nothing like the choice we have today, when each famous masterpiece is available in at least 100 versions."