Symphonie Nr. 8 F-Dur op. 93

Beethoven had definitely completed work on his Eighth Symphony by the spring of 1813 at the latest, but it was not until 27 February 1814 that the piece was given its premiere, as part of a recital Beethoven had organised. The profits from the occasion went to the composer. The first performance took place in the Great Redoutensaal at the Hofburg, a venue originally conceived for masked balls, but was used increasingly frequently as a concert hall from the mid-18th century onwards.

Like the rest of the symphony, the final movement (the climax of which is included in the recording here) comes with its fair share of compositional surprises, and expresses a distinct sense of musical humour. In a parody of a typical symphonic climax, the movement concludes with a prolonged final cadenza that takes an inordinate amount of time to get to its final chord. The Austrian conductor Oswald Kabasta (1876–1946) recorded the symphony in 1941 with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, having been appointed the orchestra’s chief conductor in 1938. Kabasta was committed to performing the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Bruckner, as well as original works and the oeuvre of his mentor, Franz Schmidt. A committed Nazi, Kabasta was dismissed from his post in Munich in 1945, and took his own life the following year.
(Constanze Köhn)