Playlist: Symphony Happy Hour - Beethoven’s Seventh
Item details
Date
Thursday, Jan 15, 2026 6:30PM
Name
Playlist: Symphony Happy Hour - Beethoven’s Seventh
Description
📍 This concert takes place at Powell Hall
Samuel Hollister, conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 7
Experience the exhilarating energy of Beethoven’s blazing and boisterous Symphony No. 7. Bold, dance-like patterns and dynamic contrasts take center stage as the symphony’s expansive introduction moves into something wilder and more exuberant. From the haunting beauty of the Allegretto to the triumphant finale, the driving rhythms and pulse-pounding force of this work will leave you breathless.
Savor each note at all three Playlist: Symphony Happy Hour concerts this season. Sip signature cocktails and mocktails, enjoy insights from the conductor, and mingle with musicians at these special one-hour concerts designed to inspire, relax, and get the conversation going.
A few things to know:
- The work was premiered in Vienna in December 1813 with Beethoven himself conducting at a concert for soldiers wounded in a battle against Napoleon. The concert was probably the most successful in Beethoven’s lifetime, with three performances in the following ten weeks.
- The second movement—Allegretto—was so popular it was encored at the premiere. It has appeared in numerous films and is often performed separately from the complete symphony, revealing its enduring emotional impact.
- Composer Richard Wagner, born in 1813, later said of Beethoven’s Seventh:
- All tumult, all yearning and storming of the heart, become here the blissful insolence of joy, which carries us away…as we sound throughout the universe the daring strains of this human sphere-dance. The Symphony is the Apotheosis of the Dance itself: it is Dance in its highest aspect, the loftiest deed of bodily motion, incorporated into an ideal mold of tone.
Tickets are currently available for subscribers. Curated Series and Compose Your Own subscriptions are on sale now.