Figaro? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in the Mozart thread? 
Beethoven gives great aural sex.
Was listening to his 5th just the other night. It’s a little bombastic but I love it, especially the quieter moments. The swirling strings in it really are magic.
Trivia: the Beatles did a version of “Ode to Joy” (a short snippet in “A Hard Day’s Night.”)
Though I love the 9th Symphony, I’m become a big fan of the 7th, too.
I also love the violin concerto; I’ve heard Itzhak Perlman play it twice, live with the Philadelphia orchestra. The first time, he broke a string . . . .
(No, really. But he just turned to the concertmaster and asked to borrow his violin, then played the rest of the first movement beautifully on an unfamiliar instrument.)
By any chance was this with the Fort Worth Symphony in the late 80s? If so, I was in the chorus for the same performances. An amazing experience.
Actually, it’s in Help! It’s where the “famous Beethoven’s famous 9th symphony” quote comes from.
They do it to calm a tiger menacing Ringo, IIRC, and half of London joins in. It’s a very oddly Pythonesque moment… odd because it predates Monty Python by several years.
I know I’m going to suffer for this… but what the heck, in it goes.
A visitor to Beethoven’s grave near Vienna was perplexed to hear music coming from out of the tombstone - he leaned over and listened carefully, and he realised it was Beethoven’s symphonies, all being played backwards; first the 9th, then the 8th, and so on. Completely baffled, he asked a local what was going on, and the man said…
Oh, don’t worry - he’s just decomposing.
I’m sorry! I truly am! But my fingers seemed to move of their own free will! 
To get back to the point, I’ve always loved Beethoven’s music for the enormity of the emotion that it creates - I delight in Mozart’s delicate interplay of interwoven harmonies, but for sheer spine-tingling power, Ludwig gets my vote every time. Astounding stuff.
Everyone forgets The Goon Show.
::sigh::
;j
I’ve heard of it, but never seen it. Hasn’t been broadcast on PBS since the mid-70s, the way Python has.
So tell me, did they ever have a sketch similar to the MP “Jerusalem/Buying a Mattress” sketch and the aforementioned Beatles Sing Along to the famous 9th scene in Help!?
(my 1000th post!)
Well…yeah 
But I’ll take what I can get!
If we’re talkin’ opera, I’m a heavy-duty Mozart fan. But once you get into the symphonies, stirng quartets, piano music, etc., sign me up for Beethoven every time.
Don’t forget the Russians!
Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky…
I concur.
The guy seems larger than life, romantic, perhaps arrogant; his work feels so innovative, daring: Beethoven made music that is poignant as well as powerful.
Me, I’ll take the Sonata #8 (the Pathetique)…the Emperor Concerto…Fur Elise.