December 22, 1808

Beethoven: The Greatest Concert of All Time?

On December 22, 1808, Ludwig van Beethoven, who was already “an established composer and a renowned piano virtuoso,” ^IC conducted a concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. Beethoven biographer Barry Cooper called it the “most remarkable” of the composer’s career. ^WK The Imaginative Conservative called it the “greatest concert of all time.” ^IC

The concert was significant for premiering Beethoven’s 5th and 6th symphonies. Both rank in the DMDB’s top 1000 albums/works of all time, the top 100 classical works of all time, and the top 25 symphonies of all time. Two different performances of the 5th symphony have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The concert also marked the debut of Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto and the Choral Fantasy, a piece for piano, orchestra and chorus, that “very much prefigures the Ninth Symphony in its progress from musical darkness to light and in its use of voices at its conclusion.” ^KC

The performances were marred by a broken heating system. The venue was “known as one of the best and most comfortable theaters in all of Europe” ^IC but that night concert-goers had to suffer through the four-hour concert in the cold. In addition, Beethoven’s partial deafness may have had “some ill effects on his playing and conducting.” ^IC