Andris Nelsons conducts Beethoven Symphonies 8 & 9

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Amanda Majeski, soprano
Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano
Pavel Černoch, tenor
Andrè Schuen, baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus,
 James Burton, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 8
Symphony No. 9

For all his reputation as a prickly artistic genius whose music crackles with heaven-storming power, Beethoven shared with his teacher Haydn a delightful musical wit, nowhere so clearly demonstrated as in his Eighth Symphony. The cycle concludes with his hugely ambitious and all-embracing Ninth, a revolution in and of itself; it was the first symphony to include chorus, transforming Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” into a rallying cry for humanity.