How the great symphonies became our soundtrack to a changing world

This autumn the BBC will present a landmark season of TV and radio programmes to show how music has provided a rousing accompaniment to the march of history for 250 yearsThis was not the reception Beethoven had imagined. On 7 April 1805, when the last chord of his landmark Third Symphony rang out in Austria's Theater-an-der-Wien at the close of the first public performance, applause soon gave way to uneasy coughing. The dramatic and lengthy work, designed as a response to Napoleon's meteoric ca...

Read full article Share article