Beethoven the Revolutionary: Hans Graf conducts Symphony No.8

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Rail workers are to strike for three days in late June, in a move that is likely to halt much of the national rail network across Britain for a week.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has told members to prepare to “shut down the rail system” with strikes on 21, 23 and 25 June, after a ballot of 40,000 members last month resulted in staff at Network Rail and 13 train operating companies voting overwhelmingly for full-scale industrial action.

Join the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and John Suchet on a journey through the powerful and inspirational world of ‘Beethoven: The Revolutionary’. 

Austrian conductor Hans Graf leads an evening comprising some of the most sublime orchestral works Beethoven produced. The theatrical overture to Coriolan opens the concert with dramatic tragedy, portraying the legendary Roman figure who betrayed his own people.

Beethoven’s first piano concerto begins with a surprisingly simple opening: a C major chord. There are none of the ornaments and elaborations which would have been familiar to audiences of the time. From this humble start, Beethoven’s huge imagination fills the piece with musical tricks and jokes, navigated on this occasion by soloist Jae-Hyuck Cho.

Eight symphonies in, and gripped by hearing loss, Beethoven was still able to reinvent and recreate. In his eighth symphony he presents another piece filled with twists, turns and surprises, and displays masterstrokes in experimentation. Musicologist Tom Service describes the symphony as ‘one of the shortest, weirdest, but most compelling symphonies of the 19th century’.

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