Beethoven's Symphony No. 2, chief among the works he completed during a despairing summer in the country while reckoning with his impending hearing loss, is as sunny a piece of music as he ever wrote, with an atmosphere of non-stop energy that made it seem audacious to those who first heard it. Like the Piano Concerto No. 3 that precedes it on this program, it received its premiere at a performance in Vienna on April 5, 1803.