This week in history class, we are studying Beethoven. Today, appropriately, we analyzed and had a lecture on his 5th Symphony...probably one of the most famous works of its genre. In class, our professor played the funniest recording I've ever listened to... it was a Concert Cast by PDQ Bach of Beethoven's fifth. They provided commentary to the music that was not only completely accurate, but hilarious too. They announced it like a baseball game. I tried not to laugh really hard but it killed me.

Appropriately, tonight I went to A performance of Beethoven's first concerto, 2nd Leonore Overture, and 5th symphony played by the Vienna Academy. The cool part of this concert was that the players performed on period instruments. This means that they played on instruments it as if it was in Beethoven's time. The brass was completely without valves, which meant that they could only play in one or two keys. Bassoons, on the other hand, were chromatic, so they covered passages that modern audiences are used to hearing played by the french horns. This was most evident the second time that the theme comes back in the first movement of the symphony. Also, all winds looked really different, and were actually made of wood (flutes) and sometimes the wood was white, in the case of the oboes and clarinets. The bows of the strings were also different, because the wood and hair were paralell instead of curved. This made them softer, i think. The klavier, of course was different because it was from the 18th century. I really enjoyed how the performer played it. He is a younger artist and you could tell because sometimes I think he let his emotions get to him and he would speed up a little, but it was okay. I thought that the first movement was the best. He was so clean, and it sounded awesome on the instrument. He could play a wide range of dynamics, too, which helped to showcase the instrument's abilities. The playing also sounded very light..it was easy to listen to him. Also, he was very accurate, which you would believe is a given, but just two nights ago someone played Tchaikovsky's concerto 1 and the audience wasn't very pleased. Anyway, It was perfect to see Beethoven's music played in Beethoven's city on Beethoven's piano (style)...It was just what i wanted out of my concert-going experience here.