When Beethoven's final symphonic offering ode-ed joyously in the Austrian capital in May 1824, few would've thought they were listening to the simultaneous apotheosis of a revolutionary composer and the extensive canon of Western music itself. Most would've been thinking about the cost of the interval ice creams and that weird bit at the end of the gig when some deaf old fella with a face like a freshly slapped derriere had a crack at 'conducting'...