Gossec, Mozart and Beethoven - by Marc Mandel and Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty

Summary: Listen to the Concert Preview! BSO principal flute Elizabeth Rowe and principal harp Jessica Zhou join French conductor François-Xavier Roth for Mozart's masterful Concerto in C for Flute and Harp. The Belgian-born François-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829), whose music the BSO has never played, was a Haydn contemporary who outlived both Beethoven and Schubert. Active in Paris during the Revolution and the rise of Napoleon, he composed virtually nothing in the final thirty years of his life. One of two noted exceptions is the ebullient 1809 Symphony for Seventeen Parts. By contrast, Beethoven's towering Eroica Symphony, composed five years earlier, ushers in seismic changes in the form, scale, and impact of the symphonic genre.