Athens & Epidaurus Festival: Beethoven 250 Years

The Athens State Orchestra, under the baton of its artistic director, distinguished conductor Stefanos Tsialis, will celebrate 250 years since Beethoven’s birth, presenting two masterworks of the great German classical composer at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus as part of this year’s Athens and Epidaurus Festival.

The short but very dynamic overture of the ballet, The Creature of Prometheus (1801) with its ancient Greek themes, will open the evening program, vividly portraying the titular, mythical Titan as an agent of knowledge and enlightenment for the human race.

Symphony No. 7 (1812), an “apotheosis of dance” as aptly called by Wagner, expresses a triumphal affirmation of life, through ideal musical means, in a timeless, topical and universal manner.

In between the two Beethoven works, the flourishing, exceptionally talented pianist Alexia Mouza will perform Shostakovich’s electrifying Piano Concerto No. 1, in which a biting, often teasing modernist sensibility is masterfully combined with genuine, touching sentimentalism.