Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn, Germany, on December 17, 1770, and died in Vienna, Austria, on March 26, 1827. The first performance of the Fifth Symphony took place in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien on December 22, 1808, with the composer conducting. The Symphony No. 5 is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings. Approximate performance time is thirty-one minutes.

Beethoven’s immortal Fifth Symphony continues to astonish listeners with its elemental power, taut drama, and, above all else, sense of absolute inevitability. But there was nothing inevitable about the process of the work’s creation. The composition of the Fifth Symphony took place over a span of approximately four years (1804-1808). During that time, Beethoven wrote and rewrote passages, filling sketchbook upon sketchbook with ideas for the Symphony.

Beethoven finally completed his Fifth Symphony in the spring of 1808. The Fifth received its premiere at a December 22, 1808 concert, sponsored by the composer, and held at the Vienna Theater an der Wien. Beethoven served as both conductor and pianist in a marathon program, featuring almost four hours of his music.

Perhaps a music lover who had access to a time machine might choose this concert as the first destination. Imagine the opportunity to witness Beethoven performing several of his greatest masterworks! By all accounts however, the event was far from a triumph. A lack of sufficient rehearsal time, coupled with Beethoven’s failings as a conductor, led to performances that were haphazard at best, and disasters at worst. Further, the audience endured this marathon concert—held in the dead of winter—in an unheated theater.

Today, of course, the Beethoven Fifth maintains its status as one of the greatest and most popular Symphonies. However, the music’s extraordinary power and revolutionary nature at first inspired confusion, awe, and even fear on the part of some music lovers. In his Memoirs, Hector Berlioz recalled an 1828 performance of the Beethoven Fifth in Paris, attended by one of the young French composer’s teachers at the Conservatoire, Jean-François Lesueur. After the concert, Berlioz rushed to Lesueur, anxious to learn his professor’s opinion:

I went striding up and down the passage with flushed cheeks. “Well, dear master?”...“Hush! I want air; I must go outside. It is incredible, wonderful! It stirred and affected and disturbed me to such a degree that when I came out of the box and tried to put on my hat I could not find my own head! Do not speak to me until tomorrow.”...

The next day I rushed off to his house, and we at once fell to talking about the masterpiece which had stirred us so deeply...It was easy to see that I was talking to a quite different being from the man of the day before, and that the subject was painful to him. But I persisted until Lesueur, after again admitting how deeply the symphony had affected him, shook his head with a curious smile, and said, “All the same, such music ought not to be written.” To which I replied, “Don’t be afraid, dear master, there will never be too much of it.”

The Fifth Symphony’s propulsive opening movement (Allegro con brio) begins with a proclamation of the famous “short-short-short-long” motif—the seed from which the entire work will grow (Anton Schindler quoted the composer as describing this passage in the following manner: “Thus fate knocks at the door!” The authenticity of this quote has long been a subject of dispute). The second movement (Andante con moto) is in the form of variations on two themes, the latter incorporating the central four-note motif. The third-movement scherzo (Allegro) proceeds to a breathtaking transitional passage, in which the timpani softly repeats the four-note motif. The first violins intone echoes of the scherzo, as the orchestra moves inexorably to the glorious finale (Allegro), which follows without pause. Now, the central motif is transformed into a triumphant celebration, reinforced by the introduction of piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones—all making their first appearance in a Beethoven Symphony. A quiet reprise of the scherzo resolves to the work’s glorious Presto conclusion, where all is bathed in the brightest sunlight.

Program notes by Ken Meltzer