Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conquered the world, he loved to travel. Ludwig van Beethoven, on the other hand, was fundamentally rather shy and critical of it. Nevertheless, he constantly expressed the desire to turn his back on Vienna, the city he had chosen as his home for many years. At the age of 33, he considered making Paris his new home. In our fantasy, we write the year 1803: the young Beethoven travels by coach to the French metropolis. Overwhelmed and inspired by all the breathtaking new impressions, he begins to compose. A colorful mixture of different musical ideas emerges in his mind, some of which can be attributed to his own work and some to the musical "local color". With LUDWIG GOES PARIS, the Belgian composer Johan Nijs has succeeded in creating a wonderfully humorous musical joke that could best be described as a "Viennese melange" with a wink of the eye. For example, the French national anthem and the folk song "Sur le pont d'Avignon" are blended with various themes from Beethoven's nine symphonies, which have been celebrated many times. The best known is surely the "Ode to Joy", which is also known as the European anthem. Even though the accordion as we know it today had not yet been invented in 1803, it still offers a wonderful additional timbre to transport you and your audience to "Beethoven's Paris" of the early 19th century: Bon voyage!
