ORF III showed the Vienna Symphony Orchestra from the Konzerthaus, ARTE took over the 4th movement from Vienna for a four-city broadcast
Vienna (OTS) – Great success for an extraordinary European TV project: To mark the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven’s now world-famous 9th Symphony in Vienna in 1824, ORF III broadcast yesterday’s anniversary (May 7th) as the musical prelude to an extensive ORF focus The main evening program is the masterpiece interpreted by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra live in a time-shifted manner from the Great Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus. With this production, ORF III also became part of a four-city concert series. On this day, ARTE presented the four movements of Beethoven’s “Ninth” one after the other live, with a time delay, from four European cities – performed by four top orchestras, each under top-class musical direction. In addition to the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig with Andris Nelsons, the Orchester de Paris under Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala in Milan with Riccardo Chailly, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, shown on Austrian television by ORF III, under their designated chief conductor Petr Popelka, conducted the fourth movement with the famous “Ode to Joy”. Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, Andreas Schager, Christof Flammesser and the choir of the Vienna Singing Academy under the direction of Heinz Ferlesch sang.
The Europe-wide broadcast of the Beethoven concert project proved to be a popular hit with an average reach of 1.252 million viewers on ORF III and ARTE. The ORF III broadcast of the entire symphony in Austria recorded an average of 124,000 viewers with a market share of 5 percent.
The widest circle of viewers of the Beethoven evening on ORF III – including a “Kultur Today Special” edition (7.45 p.m.) and the short documentary “Beethoven’s Ninth – The Countdown is on” (8 p.m.) with Barbara Rett – is 280,000 viewers, This corresponds to 4 percent of the Austrian TV population aged twelve and over. The European concert version from four cities achieved an average of 51,000 viewers in ARTE Austria with a 2 percent market share, in ARTE Germany 530,000 with a 2.9 percent market share and in ARTE France 547,000 with a 2.5 percent market share.
Further details about the program can be found in the press kit at presse.ORF.at.