London Philharmonic Orchestra: Alsop conducts Beethoven

Alsop conducts Beethoven
An evening dedicated to one of history’s most influential composers.

Beethoven Overture, Leonore No. 3
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3
Beethoven Symphony No. 7

Marin Alsop conductor
David Fray piano
London Philharmonic Orchestra

In the third of his piano concertos, Beethoven reached for new dramatic tools. His orchestra took in the warmth, strength and colour of added clarinets, trumpets and drums. For the first time in a concerto, Beethoven opted for the darkness of a controlling minor key. But after the argument of its first movement, the weightlessness of its central Largo and the vigorous wit of its finale, Beethoven’s Concerto discovers the radiance of C major. There’s little of that journey to enlightenment in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, just music animated by the power of rhythm as none had been before, and described by one conductor as ‘a festive paradise untouched by mortality’.