What we know as Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Opus 15, was sketched in 1795-96, completed in 1798 (three years after the work known as his Piano Concerto No. 2), and possibly first performed by Beethoven at his first public concert in Vienna on 29 March 1795. Enjoy this 1970 video of Leonard Bernstein conducting from the piano with the Vienna Philharmonic in an excerpt from the second movement (Largo) of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. | Leonard Bernstein

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, is grand and spectacular, and one of magnificent parts of the concerto is its simple and moving adagio. Here Beethoven makes a brilliant decision: the piano becomes the accompaniment to the orchestra, but maintains the leading. The version is by Maurizio Pollini and the RAI Symphony Orchestra of Rome conducted by Claudio Abbado in a recording from 1967. | History of Music

A Concert for 21 Pianos. :-) | Ludwig van Beethoven

How did part of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony become a universal symbol of the Allied war effort? Morse Code was being developed in the 1930s and the letter V was created with three short and one long pulse: di-di-di-dah. More than 10 years later and the letter V was becoming a symbol for resistance in Nazi occupied territories. Beginning in Belgium in 1941, it was graffitied on buildings, then used in the BBC’s V for Victory campaign, and in July 1941, adopted by Winston Churchill in his now famou