Symphony no. 2 in D major, op. 36

Beethoven finished the Second Symphony in 1802, during the summer he spent at Heiligenstadt outside Vienna — the same months in which he wrote the unsent letter to his brothers now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, admitting how far his hearing had failed. Nothing of that reaches the music, which is the most extrovert thing he had yet written for orchestra: a long slow introduction, a Larghetto of unhurried lyricism, and a finale opening with a rude gesture that one Viennese critic likened to a wounded dragon. The first performance came on 5 April 1803 at the Theater an der Wien.