Claudio Abbado conducts Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the 2000 Europakonzert in Berlin

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has become a classic worldwide hit due in particular to the final chorus with Schiller’s Ode to Joy. The composer himself had been thinking about a setting of the text for decades, but only in the Ninth did he find the right place for this utopian view of a world in which all men are brothers. The performance of the symphony in a European Concert is, as such, an obvious idea, as the melody to Schiller’s Ode has been the official anthem of the European Union since 1985 – in an arrangement that is incidentally by Herbert von Karajan.

The Piano Concerto in B flat major, which is generally considered to be Beethoven’s second work, but is his first major orchestral work ever according to the date of its composition, provided a charming contrast to Beethoven’s last symphony. Although the perfect musical balance of a Haydn or Mozart still prevails, there are already those unexpected accents and outbursts which Beethoven became famous for. In this way the work documents – as ultimately does the whole of the European Concert – a composer finding himself.

Berliner Philharmoniker

Claudio Abbado

Mikhaïl Pletnev