June 9, 1804

Symphony No. 3 (Beethoven)

First private trial performances of Beethoven’s Third Symphony at Lobkowitz Palace

The famous 9 June premiere date is really the date written on a bill paying musicians for two rehearsals.

The evidence is a bill, not a programme

The first documented performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony took place privately at Prince Lobkowitz's Vienna palace in late May or early June 1804, and not demonstrably on 9 June.

What survives from 9 June is a dated bill paying musicians for two rehearsals — of the symphony and of the Triple Concerto, Op. 56.

A document dated 9 June establishes that performances happened; it does not establish that one happened that day.

Twenty-two players in a palace

The bill names 22 players, possibly reinforced by three more violins and two cellos from Lobkowitz's standing orchestra, so calling the ensemble a large orchestra overstates it.

These were private trial performances under the prince's patronage. The public premiere came only on 7 April 1805, at Vienna's Theater an der Wien.

The editor of the New Beethoven Complete Edition dates the first documented performance only to late May or early June; Beethoven-Haus Bonn places it in early summer, while Eastman's reference page adopts 9 June.

What Beethoven did after hearing it

The surviving copyist's score carries later entries in Beethoven's darker ink and red chalk, which indicates he probably revised the work after hearing it played.

Ferdinand Ries later recalled mistaking the second horn's deliberately early-sounding entrance for a mistake — but he described a first rehearsal, and the story cannot be securely attached to 9 June.

The three-horn scoring was unusual without being a first: Haydn's earlier Symphony No. 31 uses four.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~1804-06.

What the sources leave uncertain

The often-repeated 9 June 1804 date comes from the date on a musicians’ payment bill, not a surviving concert program or diary establishing that the first performance occurred that day.
The New Beethoven Complete Edition’s editor dates the first documented performance only to late May or early June. Beethoven-Haus Bonn likewise places it in early summer, while Eastman’s reference page adopts 9 June as the private-premiere date.
It is unclear whether “premiere,” “trial performance,” or “rehearsal” best describes the earliest private run-throughs.