🥁Symphony No. 7

Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, finished in 1812 and first played in Vienna in December 1813, at a benefit concert for wounded soldiers with Beethoven conducting. Four movements, a little under forty minutes.

Walk-to-the-gym music since 2025-09-01-Monday, the first day of block three of 📂 Three strength blocks, new belt on my shoulder. Before that I walked to the gym in silence and arrived thinking about work.

It works because it is the most rhythmic thing he wrote. Every movement is built on one stubborn pattern, repeated until it becomes momentum. No tune I could whistle, a great deal I could walk to.

How it fits the route:

• The slow introduction gets me down the stairs and to the corner.
• The first movement proper, a skipping rhythm that never lets up, lasts as far as the canal.
• The second movement starts at the bridge. A plain march in A minor that begins in the low strings and adds a layer each time round. The first audience made the orchestra play it again on the spot. So do I, most Mondays.
• I reach the door of 🏋️ Foundry Barbell somewhere in the scherzo and the finale waits for the walk home, when I have earned it.

Bram has no opinion on Beethoven. He asked what I was listening to on testing day in November, I told him, and he said it seemed to be working and to keep the headphones out of the rack.

A later composer called the whole thing the apotheosis of the dance. I would say of the warm-up.

Route: Flat to Foundry Barbell, 06:35