After a rather long hiatus, I am again going to perform this symphony (with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo next week), which I conducted for the first time for my “Kapellmeister-Diplomprüfung” with the Slovenian Philharmonic in Ljubljana in 1983.

There is no point in talking about this symphony, one of the most popular symphonies ever, and rightly so. I was so surprised to hear the “slow” movement (actually an Allegretto in dactylic rhythm, in my personal opinion, a sort of “Trauermarsch,” very much in contrast to the other movements) as a soundtrack in one of the weirdest, and most interesting, movies I know—Zardoz by John Boorman, a 1974 film with Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling. Once described as “one of the worst movies ever made,” it is now a “cult movie.” And Beethoven is part of it!