"For Beethoven, enough was not enough. He decided the evening needed a finale, so he threw together the Choral Fantasy for piano, chorus and orchestra. Beethoven would improvise the introduction to this piece.
The omens were not good. It was a freezing night. The concert would run eventually for four hours from 6.30pm. Beethoven had fought with the original soprano, but the replacement he brought in was wholly inadequate. Goodness knows what the orchestra was like – it was an ad hoc group which would play almost all of the music under-rehearsed, with some of the huge programme of new, modern music not rehearsed at all.
The event developed into a bit of a shambles, with Beethoven publicly shouting abuse at the hapless clarinet player in the Choral Fantasy who inadvertently played the same phrase twice. Beethoven made the already alienated orchestra start again."
A good story twice told. Read it all Here
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