Jörg Widmann conducts Beethoven and himself

On the road to Beethoven

Jörg Widmann is today one of the most played living composers in the world. This is partly due to the success of the "concert overture" Con brio. The Austrian wrote the work "in great haste" in 2008 for the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks as an introduction to a Beethoven program. Widmann does not actually quote Beethoven, but based his work on the characteristics of his Seventh and Eighth symphonies.

Oblivion

Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, admiringly called the "apotheosis of the dance" by Richard Wagner, is joined by Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Symphonic Serenade. He wrote the virtuoso work for string orchestra in 1947 in the latter days of his career. Returning again from the United States, it was considered an anachronism in postwar Austria. His Symphonic Serenade, not inferior in rhythmic finesse to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, threatened to drown in oblivion. Wrongly so, as it will turn out.