The piece
Beethoven finished his Seventh Symphony in 1812 and conducted it himself in Vienna on 8 December 1813, at a concert for wounded soldiers. The audience at once demanded the second movement again: the Allegretto became one of his most played pages and is still often heard in films. The version played here is Ernst Pauer's transcription for piano solo, published in London by Augener, checked note by note against that edition.
Everything grows from one stubborn rhythm, a long note and two short ones, first low and very soft, over left-hand chords in octaves. The theme climbs little by little and swells to fortissimo, then returns later as a fugue, one voice after another. Keep the rhythm steady from beginning to end, like a slow march, and let the held chords ring without pressing them.
