In June 2020 the OrchLab team had planned to run live workshops with Garwood Foundation and St Cecilia’s Leonard Cheshire centre, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic we took our workshops online instead. As part of these sessions we had a ‘Listening Party’ where we watched specially created videos of LPO musicians making music together from their living rooms at home!
One of the pieces we featured in our Listening Party was the Scherzo from Symphony No.3 ‘Eroica’ by Ludwig van Beethoven, which you can watch in the video below.
Ludwig van Beethoven – Scherzo, third movement of Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica’
Symphony No. 3 by Beethoven, also known as ‘Eroica’ (meaning heroic in Italian), is one of Beethoven’s best-known works for orchestra. In this video you will see the whole orchestra playing from home! Which instruments can you see? Are there any instruments missing? You may want to explore our OrchMap to remind you of all the instruments in the orchestra.
The third movement, called ‘Scherzo’, is quick and lively and is in 3/4 time. That means that in each bar there are three beats. It’s a really fast waltz! See if you can count along in threes: 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3… It’s quite quick, so maybe you could try clapping or playing an instrument on the first beat of every bar instead (the 1 of the 1-2-3).
Explore more:
If you’d like to find out more about waltzes, have a look at our Play Along: Mahler Waltz.