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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.” | ||
To the punchline then: the young foreign composer was, of course, Ludwig Van Beethoven, and in that one concert he premiered his ''Symphony No. 6'' in F Major (“''Pastoral''”), his ''Piano Concerto No. 4'', his ''Choral Fantasia'', as well as playing a few choice cuts from his previously performed ''Mass'' in C Major. If that wasn’t enough — and surely | To the punchline, then: the young foreign composer was, of course, Ludwig Van Beethoven, and in that one concert he premiered his ''Symphony No. 6'' in F Major (“''Pastoral''”), his ''Piano Concerto No. 4'', his ''Choral Fantasia'', as well as playing a few choice cuts from his previously performed ''Mass'' in C Major. If that wasn’t enough — and surely, the ''Pastoral'', by itself, would be enough: it would make any sensible shortlist of humankind’s highest achievements — after the interval, the orchestra debuted the most revolutionary music, bar ''none'' ever written: the ''Disco Theme to Saturday Night Fever''<ref>I am sorry. I couldn’t resist.</ref> — although then known only as ''Symphony No. 5'' in C Minor.<ref>Anyone interested in Beethoven’s symphonies — and that is, as Hendrix put it, “everybody here with hearts, ''any'' kind of hearts, and ears” — should check out Professor Robert Greenberg’s wonderful [https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/download/beethoven-symphonies/ lectures about Beethoven].</ref> | ||
If the [[JC]] could travel back in time — with thermals and a cushion, of course — for one night in all of human history, this is the night he’d choose. ''Imagine being one of those lucky 1,500 who heard | If the [[JC]] could travel back in time — with thermals and a cushion, of course — for one night in all of human history, this is the night he’d choose. ''Imagine being one of those lucky 1,500 Austrians who heard Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for the first time in history''. There have been few watersheds in the cultural history of western civilisation quite as profound as this one. Western music would never be the same again. | ||
Okay, so, ''hindsight''? | Okay, so, ''hindsight''? | ||