Run Time: Approx. 35 minutes

“I will seize fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely.”

—Ludwig van Beethoven, 1801

Even if you think you’ve never heard Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, you know it. It bursts forth with what have become the four most famous notes in music history. Though you may recognize these four notes, you might not know what they mean. They are the fate theme, and while composers throughout history have written many such motifs, none have conjured quite the fear and awe that Beethoven’s did. These famous notes are the reaper personified in sound—the ghost of Christmas past, the witches from Macbeth—and they are knocking at the door.

In addition to the usual ruminations on man’s relationship to predetermination that occupied early 19th-century artists, Beethoven had an additional reason to be concerned with his destiny. About ten years prior, he began to notice a ringing in his ears. By the time he began sketches for the Fifth Symphony, it was apparent that his hearing was in severe decline. He would soon be deaf. It’s difficult to imagine a more devastating realization for a musician, but in the face of an affliction that would have taken many people out of the game, Beethoven refused to be waylaid. He doggedly continued composing for the rest of his life, even after losing his hearing completely.

Though we now see Beethoven’s story as a valiant triumph of will, it was, for many years, a source of intense emotional torment, even leading him to contemplate suicide. In an 1802 letter to his brothers, now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, he wrote, “but what a humiliation when one stood beside me and heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard the shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents brought me to the verge of despair; a little more and I would have put an end to my life.”

Yet, despite what he saw as an immeasurably cruel twist of fate, Beethoven also believed he was destined to be a creator of great art, and that sense of divine purpose ultimately won out over his pain. “Only Art it was that withheld me,” he wrote, “ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon me to produce.”

The first movement erupts from the orchestra with alarming ferocity—those famous four notes seemingly designed to jolt a complacent audience to attention. This will not be like anything you’ve heard before, it seems to say. Pay attention. Beethoven wastes no time on an introduction, the story opens in the midst of confrontation. We meet our villain: fate.

One of the most remarkable features of Beethoven’s music is his ability to take a tiny morsel of melody and develop it into something enormous—enough to build an entire symphony on. We see this again and again in his work, and it’s exactly what he does in the Fifth Symphony. He takes those four notes and makes them dance, makes them sing, makes them rage. He mines them for every characteristic possibility and weaves them through every movement.

The first movement presents an obsessive repetition of the opening fate motif. It drives through various pitch levels, punctuated by abrupt stops that interrupt its restless momentum. Like the Verdi overture, it seems to roil, bubbling through the orchestra until it crashes forward again and again.

The second movement offers a contemplative respite from the tempest. It also includes moments of triumph and joy, sounded out in upward-reaching brass fanfares. Nods to the fate theme are more subtle here, but certainly present—most notably in the music’s constant yielding of major thirds (a very joyful interval) to minor thirds (more dour), the same interval that scaffolds the fate theme. As in Verdi’s overture, fate never strays too far.

Just like the first movement, the Scherzo is relentlessly focused on a single theme, once again derived from those opening four notes. Here, the character is raucous and bombastic, full of hunting horn calls and militaristic flourishes. But Beethoven still holds to the definition of Scherzo, or “joke.” He intersperses the excitement with moments of humor that are almost cartoonish—musical wink amid the storm as the theme tiptoes through the woodwinds.

From one such moment of levity comes an unexpected transition directly into the finale, one of the most victorious in all of music. Structurally, it’s unusual for a work set in a minor key to end in a major one. With this piece, Beethoven begins in C minor—a key that, for him, held the darkest, most dramatic connotations—and ends in C major, a clear progression from darkness to light. Also symbolic is his transition from a descending figure in the opening theme to an ascending one in the finale, another classic device to represent redemption. But even without knowing any of the technical aspects that go into the symphony, it’s impossible to miss the cinematic journey Beethoven crafts.

The Fifth Symphony is not just a rumination on fate, but  a seizing of the reins. It’s a declaration of self-determination. Over the course of the work, Beethoven moves from fiery torment to a conclusion full of triumph and joy. Along the way, he transforms the fate theme again and again, bending it to his will. In this world he has created, he is the master of fate; he has indeed seized it by the throat.

–  Valerie Sly, 2025