The piece was very well received, such that the audience demanded the Allegretto movement be encored immediately. The Italian guitar virtuoso Mauro Giuliani played cello at the premiere. The orchestra was led by Beethoven's friend Ignaz Schuppanzigh and included some of the finest musicians of the day: violinist Louis Spohr, composers Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Antonio Salieri.

The program also included the patriotic work Wellington's Victory, exalting the victory of the British over Napoleon's France. In Beethoven's address to the participants, the motives are not openly named: 'We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us.' The work was premiered with Beethoven himself conducting in Vienna on 8 December 1813 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau. Д«eethoven's life at this time was marked by a worsening hearing loss, which made 'conversation notebooks' necessary from 1819 on, with the help of which Beethoven communicated in writing.

After the 3rd Symphony, and possibly the 5th as well, the 7th Symphony seems to be another of Beethoven's musical confrontations with Napoleon, this time in the context of the European wars of liberation from years of Napoleonic domination. When Beethoven began composing the 7th symphony, Napoleon was planning his campaign against Russia.

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