Beethoven did not work continuously on this symphony and interrupted his work a couple of times. As the sketches show, he presumably wrote down first ideas in the autumn of 1800.No other autograph material has survived. As Ferdinand Ries, a pupil of Beethoven, bitterly reports, Beethoven gave him the autograph, but it was “unfortunately stolen by a friend, out of pure friendship.” In April 1803, the composition was premiered publicly, together with the first symphony and the third piano concerto with Beethoven himself as soloist.

Although Beethoven’s first two symphonies are still influenced by Haydn and Mozart, novelties can already be discovered. The second symphony starts breaking away from traditional forms and lets us surmise the monumentality of Beethoven’s innovation.

The editor, Armin Raab, critically illuminates the transmission of the work and its sources. He also clears up a wide spread belief in older literature, that this cheerful work might have been composed parallel to the “Heiligenstädter Testament”. The practical performance material by Breitkopf & Härtel is based on the music text of the New Beethoven Complete Edition and constitutes the authoritative reading of Beethoven research.