Beethoven Meets Coldplay At The Austin Symphony Orchestra

The Details:

When: Saturday, March 1, 2025, at 7:30 PM
Where: The Long Center (Tickets here)

“Would Beethoven have found meaning in Coldplay’s music?” That’s the bold question at the heart of Beethoven X Coldplay, a symphonic fusion led by guest conductor Steve Hackman, whom On Milwaukee calls “a daring voice intent on redefining art music in the 21st century.”

The performance merges Beethoven’s iconic Eroica Symphony with Coldplay’s biggest anthems, including “Yellow”, “Viva La Vida,” “Clocks,” and “The Scientist.” Hackman, known for blending classical and contemporary genres in unexpected ways, transforms Beethoven’s masterpiece into a secular oratorio, performed by a full orchestra and three vocalists and Hackman himself on piano.

Watch the ASO preview:

Beethoven’s Eroica: A Symphony of Revolution

“Shortly after beginning work on this fusion, I realized I was the exact same age Beethoven was when he wrote the Eroica Symphony,” Hackman recently reflected in an interview when he brought the show to Detroit. . "This had a curious effect on me. I started to wonder: what was Beethoven the thirty-five year old like? What would it have been like to sit down with him? What would we talk about? And, eventually, I wondered: would he have liked the music of Coldplay?”

• Eroica is “some of the most ingenious music Beethoven ever wrote [and] indelibly changed classical music forever,” Hackman explained to On Milwaukee last year, on why he was drawn to Beethoven’s iconic symphony in the first place.
  

• Written during one of the most tumultuous periods of Beethoven’s life, Eroica was originally dedicated to Napoleon as a symbol of democracy and heroism, Hackman said, but when Napoleon declared himself emperor, Beethoven ripped up the dedication page, instead inscribing: “To the memory of a great man”
  

Coldplay’s Anthems of Love and Loss:

At first glance, Beethoven and Coldplay seem worlds apart. But Hackman saw an undeniable connection—especially in “Viva La Vida”:

• “There’s this almost uncanny through line and connection point between [] Beethoven’s [Eroica] and Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’ the album,” Hackman said. “‘Viva La Vida’” by Coldplay, which has the famous Eugene Delacroix painting on its cover that is – of course – the French revolution… Almost as though if you were to choose a painting that represented the original intention of this symphony in Beethoven’s mind, it very well could’ve been that Delacroix painting”.

• Could Coldplay Have Moved Beethoven? “...You imagine the 34-year-old composer,” Hackman said, “who had recently battled depression to the extent of considering taking his own life to the realization that he was irreversibly going deaf, not being overcome by the lyric [from Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’]: ‘Tears stream down your face… when you lose something you cannot replace…and I will try to fix you?’”

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