Watch & Listen

Music Director, Christian Kluxen shares his thoughts in this pre-concert talk video on Beethoven's Symphony No. 2.

Beethoven composed his Second Symphony in 1802 – a year of great emotional angst. His hearing had begun to deteriorate, and on the advice of doctors he took time away from Vienna and visited the small town of Heiligenstadt. He unloaded his mental anguish about his impending deafness in a letter to his brothers – the famed “Heiligenstadt Testament.” Remarkably, in the same period he produced this work, which has been described as surprising happy, carefree and innocently sunny. The first performance was directed by the composer in a concert in Vienna on April 5, 1803.