Beethoven fondly spoke of his ebullient and inventive Seventh Symphony as his “most excellent.”
Critics hated it.
One sniped that Beethoven must have composed it while drunk; another called him “ripe for the madhouse.” Composed five years later, Schubert’s Sixth Symphony wears its Beethovenian heart proudly on its sleeve while speaking a language all its own. Jukka-Pekka Saraste will conduct both.
// Get tickets for three performances February 2-4 at San Francisco Symphony, 201 Van Ness Ave. (Civic Center), sfsymphony.org.
