At the closing concert of Concerto Budapest’s Beethoven weekend, the enchanting Elisabeth Leonskaja will perform the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, whose 1808 public premiere was – with his hearing now almost totally gone – the composer’s last time performing as the soloist in a piano concerto.

The same marathon-length composer’s concert at the city’s Theater an der Wien , which generated a mixed reception, also saw the first performance in front of an audience of the Sixth or ‘Pastoral’ symphony, with its music declaratively and even programmatically evoking “memories of rural life”.

The awakening of cheerful feelings accompanying arrival in the countryside, followed by the scene by the stream with birdsong, the images of peasant merrymaking and the storm, and finally the joyful and grateful feelings that arise when the storm subsides, will be certain to create a pastoral atmosphere among the audience, perfectly befitting the symphony’s sobriquet.

While the premieres of these two masterpieces took place at the still-operating and ever popular Theater an der Wien, the piece entitled The Consecration of the House that opened the concert was composed for the festive opening of another venue, the rebuilt Theater in der Josefstadt in 1822 – and as a beloved concert number, its position is at least as solid as those of the other two.