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Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (1807–08)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Every listener may feel free to interpret this immortal work in his or her own fashion. The idea that it represents the composer’s mighty but victorious struggle with destiny was put into circulation by Beethoven himself, or at least by his fantasy-spinning secretary, Anton Schindler, who reported the composer’s explanation of the opening motif as “So pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte” (Thus Fate knocks at the door). Perhaps Beethoven did say that, and it offers a vivid image for an extraordinarily unconventional opening for a Classical symphony. But there are so many other forces at work besides that of fate that we need to open our ears and minds to every signal it sends out. Most listeners agree that they may be different at every hearing.

Fate struck Beethoven most cruelly in about 1802 when, still in his early 30s, he acknowledged the fact of his deafness and began the long process of coming to terms with a handicap that was less of a musical disability (it did not interfere with his ability to compose) than a social one. Up to that point his career as a musician was going swimmingly, with Vienna’s aristocrats lining up to engage him, refined ladies swooning whenever he played, and music of limpid beauty pouring from his pen. His standing as a virtuoso pianist with excellent connections at court was seriously threatened, and his relations with friends, especially with women, were now forever circumscribed. 

We might think that as a composer his reactions were more violent than the situation warranted. The “Eroica” Symphony, the immediate product of that profound crisis, transformed the world of classical music for ever. He did not stop there. The superhuman creative energy that produced the great heroic works of that decade had never been heard before in music. One colossal path-breaking composition followed another, combining unearthly beauty of invention, technical virtuosity, vastness of conception, and a radical freedom of expression and form. 

Beethoven may have—privately—felt inordinately sorry for himself, but there is no self-pity in the music. Defiance, yes certainly, although the sense of triumph expressed in the conclusion of the Fifth Symphony is surely more than a tongue-sticking-out I-told-you-so addressed to Fate. Beethoven’s triumph gloats not just over an unfair destiny cowering at his feet, but rather over all mankind, over all of us who have the misfortune not to measure up to his infinite creative spirit. 

The famous four-note motif that opens the Fifth Symphony is heard constantly in the first movement and intermittently elsewhere, but it is far from being the all-pervading idea that many people suppose. The second movement deftly and curiously blends gorgeous cantilena with military trumpets, all wrapped in variation form. The third movement is full of mystery; not defiant, not triumphant, more humorous or spectral, and out of it grows the huge shout of triumph of the finale, as the trombones proclaim a new order of the universe, supported by piccolo, contrabassoon, and the full weight of C major, the key which Haydn had assigned to the completion of The Creation itself. Beethoven was so proud of the exciting passage at the end of the scherzo, where the approach of the finale is felt in the very bones of the music, that he felt impelled to repeat it. So the heavens open not once, but twice.

—Hugh Macdonald

Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (1807–08)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Every listener may feel free to interpret this immortal work in his or her own fashion. The idea that it represents the composer’s mighty but victorious struggle with destiny was put into circulation by Beethoven himself, or at least by his fantasy-spinning secretary, Anton Schindler, who reported the composer’s explanation of the opening motif as “So pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte” (Thus Fate knocks at the door). Perhaps Beethoven did say that, and it offers a vivid image for an extraordinarily unconventional opening for a Classical symphony. But there are so many other forces at work besides that of fate that we need to open our ears and minds to every signal it sends out. Most listeners agree that they may be different at every hearing.

Fate struck Beethoven most cruelly in about 1802 when, still in his early 30s, he acknowledged the fact of his deafness and began the long process of coming to terms with a handicap that was less of a musical disability (it did not interfere with his ability to compose) than a social one. Up to that point his career as a musician was going swimmingly, with Vienna’s aristocrats lining up to engage him, refined ladies swooning whenever he played, and music of limpid beauty pouring from his pen. His standing as a virtuoso pianist with excellent connections at court was seriously threatened, and his relations with friends, especially with women, were now forever circumscribed. 

We might think that as a composer his reactions were more violent than the situation warranted. The “Eroica” Symphony, the immediate product of that profound crisis, transformed the world of classical music for ever. He did not stop there. The superhuman creative energy that produced the great heroic works of that decade had never been heard before in music. One colossal path-breaking composition followed another, combining unearthly beauty of invention, technical virtuosity, vastness of conception, and a radical freedom of expression and form. 

Beethoven may have—privately—felt inordinately sorry for himself, but there is no self-pity in the music. Defiance, yes certainly, although the sense of triumph expressed in the conclusion of the Fifth Symphony is surely more than a tongue-sticking-out I-told-you-so addressed to Fate. Beethoven’s triumph gloats not just over an unfair destiny cowering at his feet, but rather over all mankind, over all of us who have the misfortune not to measure up to his infinite creative spirit. 

The famous four-note motif that opens the Fifth Symphony is heard constantly in the first movement and intermittently elsewhere, but it is far from being the all-pervading idea that many people suppose. The second movement deftly and curiously blends gorgeous cantilena with military trumpets, all wrapped in variation form. The third movement is full of mystery; not defiant, not triumphant, more humorous or spectral, and out of it grows the huge shout of triumph of the finale, as the trombones proclaim a new order of the universe, supported by piccolo, contrabassoon, and the full weight of C major, the key which Haydn had assigned to the completion of The Creation itself. Beethoven was so proud of the exciting passage at the end of the scherzo, where the approach of the finale is felt in the very bones of the music, that he felt impelled to repeat it. So the heavens open not once, but twice.

—Hugh Macdonald