Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

How wonderful that such familiar pieces as Beethoven’s Fifth — the most famous of all symphonies — still “work” in performance. Audiences of all kinds, occasional and frequent attenders alike, still enjoy its wonders 200 years after its premiere in an unheated concert hall one cold night in Vienna in December 1808. Even those few who arrive with trepidation at hearing an old warhorse one more time are inevitably drawn to the music’s opening drama, rousing ending, and innumerable discoveries in between.

Beethoven began this symphony in 1804, soon after completing his Third, which had been nicknamed “Eroica” (Heroic). That 45-minute work, which contemporary audiences felt was much too long for a symphony, was composed just after one of the composer’s most anguishing life experiences, as he brought himself to terms with the growing affliction that would eventually rob him of all hearing.

After sketching the first two move­ments, Beethoven set it aside for more than two years while he wrote his opera Fidelio and the lively and untroubled Fourth Symphony. He then worked diligently on the Fifth throughout 1807, while simultaneously writing the Sixth, nicknamed “Pastoral.” This kind of multitasking — working on several compositions at once — was a normal practice for Beethoven throughout his life, with the ideas originally intended for one work slipping across into a different work entirely.

Throughout this middle period of Beethoven’s life, the composer was routinely strapped for funds and, in 1808, he developed plans for a special evening “Akademie” concert on December 22 to raise money for himself. He secured the Theater an der Wein and rehearsed with musicians in the days leading up to the concert. Beethoven, perhaps sensing the difficulty of scheduling future concerts, kept revising the evening’s program to include more and more music.

The concert lasted more than four hours and featured the world premieres of the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, the Fourth Piano Concerto (with Beethoven as soloist), and the Choral Fantasy as a grand finale, assembling all of the evening’s performing forces at once. Unfortunately, the weather that night was colder than usual and the building was unheated, so the conditions for comfortable listening and performing deteriorated as the hours passed.

From that chilly premiere, the Fifth Symphony’s reputation only increased, and by the end of the 19th century, it had attained its current status as a classical superstar. The association of the opening four-note motive, matching Morse code’s dot–dot–dot–dash for the letter “V,” came to be a shorthand to signify Allied victory during World War II, pushing it further into public consciousness.

The idea that those four notes represent the composer’s turbulent struggle with destiny was put into circulation by Beethoven himself, or at least by his fantasy-spinning amanuensis Anton Schindler, who reported the composer’s explanation of the opening motive as, “So pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte” (Thus Fate knocks at the door).

Fate struck Beethoven most cruelly in 1802 when, still in his early 30s, he acknowledged his deafness and began the long process of coming to terms with a handicap that was both a musical disability and, perhaps moreso, a social one. His standing as a virtuoso pianist with excellent connections at court was seriously threatened, and his connec­tions with friends, and especially with women, were now forever circumscribed.

We might think that, as a composer, his reactions were far more violent than the situation warranted. The “Eroica” Symphony, the immediate product of that profound crisis, transformed the world of classical music forever. But he did not stop there. One colossal pathbreaking piece followed another, combining unearthly beauty of invention, technical virtuosity, vastness of concep­tion, and a radical freedom of expression and form.

Beethoven may have felt inordinately sorry for himself, but there is no self-pity in his music. Defiance, certainly, although the sense of triumph expressed in the conclusion of the Fifth Symphony is surely more than Beethoven thumbing his nose at Fate.

Whether you choose to listen to this work with the idea of “Fate knocking at the door,” as a path from darkness to light, mystery to certainty, ignorance to enlightenment; or merely a well-craft­ed symphony, this piece is sure to take you on an exhilarating journey.

The four movements are concise and focused. The first movement is built almost entirely around the four-note opening motive — stated again and again, as foreground then background, upside down and right side up again, in unison and harmonized.

The second movement takes a graceful line and works it through various guises, almost always with a sense of expectancy underneath, growing stronger and stronger.

The third movement alternates between quiet uncertainty and forthright declamations. Near the end, a section of quietly forbidding darkness leads directly into the bright C-major sunshine of the last movement. Beethoven revels in the major key, then develops a strong musical idea through to an unstoppable finish, repeated and extended, emphatic and triumphant.

— Eric Sellen

Eric Sellen is The Cleveland Orchestra’s Editor Emeritus. He previously was Program Book Editor for 28 seasons.