Hemelse Noten
Radio documentary about the Dutch conductor Harke de Roos, who has been on a musical mission for many years. He is attempting to prove that Beethoven’s world-famous symphonies should be played at a different tempo than has been assumed for decades.
The mystery: the metronome markings that Beethoven himself left behind were so bizarrely fast that many musicians thought Beethoven had made a mistake or that his metronome was broken.
Harke de Roos believes he has uncovered the original tempos. For his Beethoven project de Roos is collaborating with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Together with this renowned Austrian orchestra, he has recorded Beethoven’s Second Symphony, in order to put his theory on the original tempos into practice.
Dutch Public Network VPRO De Avonden 2011