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On a freezing night December 1808, about 1,500 people attended an ''akademie'' concert at the ''Theater an der Wien'' in suburban Vienna. The programme was to be four hours long, during which a young composer from out of town<ref>Bonn, in northwestern Germany — a long way from the cultural capital of the Austrian Empire.</ref> would be debuting a number of works. | On a freezing night December 1808, about 1,500 people attended an ''akademie'' concert at the ''Theater an der Wien'' in suburban Vienna. The programme was to be four hours long, during which a young composer from out of town<ref>Bonn, in northwestern Germany — a long way from the cultural capital of the Austrian Empire.</ref> would be debuting a number of works. | ||
The run-up to the concert did not bode well: many of the musicians in theatre’s house orchestra had “conflicting commitments” with a better-paying gig across town at the ''Burgtheater'', and even the solo soprano dropped out at the last minute, to be replaced by an unknown teenager— “[[I have to hop]]” is no modern excuse — and the composer, an irascible fellow, kept changing the music right up to the last minute. So poor were his relations with his musicians that, on some accounts, they refused his baton, and another conductor was drafted in to lead the orchestra on the day of the concert. | The run-up to the concert did not bode well: many of the musicians in theatre’s house orchestra had “conflicting commitments” with a better-paying gig across town at the ''Burgtheater'', and even the solo soprano dropped out at the last minute, to be replaced by an unknown teenager— “[[I have to hop]]” is no modern excuse, it seems — and the composer, an irascible fellow, kept changing the music right up to the last minute. So poor were his relations with his musicians that, on some accounts, they refused his baton, and another conductor was drafted in to lead the orchestra on the day of the concert. | ||
The concert was a disaster. What orchestra | The concert was a disaster. What orchestra the organisers could scrape together was under-rehearsed — “lacking in all respects”, according to one reviewer — the poor young soprano suffered stage fright, the hall was freezing and the show badly overran. During one piece in the first half, the orchestra fell apart completely and had to restart from the top. | ||
So why, two hundred years later, is there even a record of this concert — most of [[Supercheese]]’s concerts were like that, and there’s no record of any of ''them'' — and how has it found its way onto a [[Jolly Contrarian]] article about hindsight? You will not be surprised to hear there is a punchline. | So why, two hundred years later, is there even a documentary record of this concert — most of [[Supercheese]]’s concerts were like that, and there’s no documentary record of any of ''them'' — and how has it found its way onto a [[Jolly Contrarian]] article about hindsight? | ||
You will not be surprised to hear ''there is a punchline''. | |||
Of the scathing reviews that followed, one at least — in the ''Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung'' — was prescient enough to say the following: “To judge all these pieces after only one hearing, especially considering [...] that so many were performed in a row, and most are so grand and long, is impossible.” | Of the scathing reviews that followed, one at least — in the ''Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung'' — was prescient enough to say the following: “To judge all these pieces after only one hearing, especially considering [...] that so many were performed in a row, and most are so grand and long, is impossible.” | ||