Hrůša & Bamberger Symphoniker: Beethoven 1, 2 & 3

1803 | Symphony No. 2 

My Second brims with energy and optimism although – I have to confess – I wrote it during one of the darkest periods of my life. That summer of 1802 I moved to Heiligenstadt, a small town just outside Vienna, in a desperate attempt to preserve at least some of my rapidly deteriorating hearing. The letter I wrote to my brothers Carl and Johann on the 6th of October still burns in my hands. A letter I ultimately never sent, in which I conveyed to the world my immense suffering (known as the Heiligenstadt Testament). “Oh, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you,” such was the torrent of despair that poured out of me. I could not just say to the world: “Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf!”  

The premiere of the Second at the Theater an der Wien in April 1803 caused an even greater stir than my First. A Viennese scandal sheet with the lofty designation Zeitung für die elegante Welt described it as “a hideously wounded, writhing dragon that refuses to die”. Oh, how aptly it captured my circumstances at the time! However, I refused to be consumed by despair. In the Second I celebrate life. 

Interesting facts 

• In 2026 readers of BBC Music Magazine voted the Eroica the best symphony of all time. Moreover five of Beethoven’s symphonies were included among the top twenty-seven symphonic works: the Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and the Ninth. 

• Music from the first movement of the Eroica is used in the action thriller Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. 

Conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas on Beethoven’s Eroica from his series Keeping Score 

“The symphony is in four movements. The first movement is about life. It’s about youth, hope, joy, frustration, anger, confusion, celebration and, above all, energy. The second movement concerns death. Death with all its public and personal implications. What has died? A hero or hope or innocence or all the above? And how can we make sense of this? And how can we go on after this? That’s the question the third movement answers, because it takes up the future and the joy of creativity. And then the fourth movement is a shameless show-off piece. It’s a kind of musical decathlon based on an absolutely inconsequential bit of musical fluff. But what Beethoven does with this theme is overwhelming, amazing on every level. And then, just before he’s done, he gives us a brief glimpse of paradise, a deeply felt, sorrowful confession of who he really is. And then a kind of slam-bam, thank you, ma’am. That’s all, folks!” 

Bamberg Symphony – Prague Spring 2027 Resident Orchestra 

It is the 20th of March, 1946, shortly after eight o’clock in the evening. A tense silence prevails in Bamberg’s Zentralsaal as the newly founded ensemble plays the first few notes. Beethoven is on the programme. The Bamberg Symphony enters the concert arena through the music of arguably the greatest symphonist in history, and it is in his oeuvre that the orchestra finds its deep artistic roots… 

Based in the picturesque Bavarian town of Bamberg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the orchestra has given 8,000 concerts in more than 500 cities in 64 countries and is thus one of the most frequently travelled symphonic ensembles in the world. They briefly define their mission as “resonating worldwide”. Their numerous recordings, released on such prestigious labels as Deutsche Grammophon and accentus music, have won a series of international awards, among them the German Record Critics’ Award 2021 and three International Classical Music Awards (2022, 2023 and 2025). The ensemble’s in-depth study of Beethoven’s music continually draws on the orchestra’s entire eighty-year history, supported by the endeavours of Joseph Keilberth, Sir Georg Solti, Eugen Jochum and Honorary Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Herbert Blomstedt. Today this legacy is further developed in close collaboration with Chief Conductor Jakub Hrůša. Under his direction Beethoven’s cycle represents not only a tribute to this great composer, but also a return to the orchestra’s own history. Beethoven is and remains the foundation of the Bamberg Symphony’s musical identity.