Beethoven concert of 22 December 1808
The Beethoven concert of 22 December 1808 was a benefit concert held for Ludwig van Beethoven at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna that featured the public premieres of Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Choral Fantasy. This concert, advertised as an Akademie, was held in a very cold hall and lasted about four hours. Its featured performers were an orchestra, chorus, vocal soloists, and Beethoven as the conductor and piano soloist. Beethoven biographer Barry Cooper calls the concert's content the "most remarkable" of Beethoven's career.
Detail of an 1804–05 Beethoven portrait by J. W. Mähler
The Theater an der Wien as it appeared in 1812. The theater still exists and thrives today as a major venue for opera.
The Beethoven memorial now displayed on the exterior wall of the Theater an der Wien. The text reads, "Ludwig van Beethoven lived in the Theater an der Wien in 1803 and 1804. Parts of his opera, the Third Symphony, and the Kreutzer Sonata were written here. Fidelio and other works received their first performance in this house."
The hand-copied parts used for the premiere of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. They include corrections hand-entered by the composer, and are on display in the Lobkowitz family museum in Prague.
A benefit concert or charity concert is a type of musical benefit performance featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis.
Live 8, a large, international series of benefit concerts staged in 2005
The Concert For Bangladesh (1971), the first modern, large-scale benefit concert
Bob Geldof, who led the Live Aid event in 1985
