Konzert in der Bonner Beethoven-Halle am 13.8.1845, anläßlich des ersten Bonner Beethoven-Festes im August 1845 - Titelseite zur Leipziger Illustrirten Zeitung mit nicht bezeichneter Illustration, vermutlich nach einer Vorlage von Georg Osterwald, Leipzig, 1845

During the preparations for the first Bonn Beethoven Festival (from 10 to 13 August 1845) there were recurring internal disputes arising from Franz Liszt"s participation. In the end it was finally decided to organize the programme along the lines of the "Lower Rhine Music festivals". So on the first day Beethoven"s Ninth Symphony and "Missa solemnis" op. 123 were performed, on the second day the unveiling of the memorial on Münsterplatz was celebrated with High Mass in the Minster and the performance of an overture and a festival chorus by Heinrich Karl Breidenstein. The event closed with a so-called artists" concert, during which a festival cantata which Franz Liszt had specially composed for the event and Beethoven"s Egmont-Ouverture, op. 84 were performed. The woodcut engraving shown here depicts this concert, given in the old Beethoven Concert Hall in Bonn, which had been specially built for this occasion. The concert hall is shown here decorated for the event. It had been finished shortly before the celebrations and only following Liszt"s urgent intervention and after he had undertaken to pay all the costs. A few weeks after the celebrations it was pulled down. (S.B.)