Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Joana Mallwitz

In Beethoven’s cheerful Second Symphony from 1802, contemporaries detected something new and profound—reviews spoke, for example, of great “depth, power, and artistic erudition.” Later critics often overlooked this. For them, it was not until his world-famous “Third Symphony”—composed a year later and named “Eroica”—that the composer broke away from his role models Haydn and Mozart.