Eroica & The People United New York Performances

At David Geffen Hall, Gustavo Dudamel leads the New York Philharmonic in a program that pairs Beethoven’s “Eroica” with a new orchestration of Frederic Rzewski’s *The People United Will Never Be Defeated* in a world premiere. Rzewski’s theme-and-variations began as a political song; in orchestral form it reads as a study in how collective memory gets arranged, fractured, and rebuilt. The performance is framed as part of the United States’ 250th anniversary moment, placing dissent and civic ideals beside Beethoven’s reshaping of the heroic symphony. One clear takeaway is how both works treat “heroism” less as triumph than as argument.