Title : Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op.67
Composer : Ludwig van Beethoven
Composed during 1804-1808
Composed during 1804-1808
First Premiered in Vienna's Theater an der Wien on December 22,1808
History
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| Ludwig van Beethoven |
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| Vienna's Theater an der Wien |
The premiere in Vienna didn't go too well though. The orchestra did not play well—with only one rehearsal before the concert—and at one point, following a mistake by one of the performers in the Choral Fantasy, Beethoven had to stop the music and start again. The 5th Symphony was at the second half of the long concert programme with lots of other Beethoven’s new pieces. By the time the 5th started, the auditorium was extremely cold for the audience and the audience was exhausted by the length of the program. They didn't see how great the 5th was.
However, a year and a half later, publication of the score resulted in a rapturous unsigned review (actually by E. T. A. Hoffmann) in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. He described the music with dramatic imagery:
Radiant beams shoot through this region's deep night, and we become aware of gigantic shadows which, rocking back and forth, close in on us and destroy everything within us except the pain of endless longing—a longing in which every pleasure that rose up in jubilant tones sinks and succumbs, and only through this pain, which, while consuming but not destroying love, hope, and joy, tries to burst our breasts with full-voiced harmonies of all the passions, we live on and are captivated beholders of the spirits.
The symphony soon acquired its status as a central item in the repertoire. It was played in the inaugural concerts of the New York Philharmonic on 7 December 1842, and the [US] National Symphony Orchestra on 2 November 1931. It was first recorded by the Odeon Orchestra under Friedrich Kark in 1910. The First Movement (as performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra) was featured on the Voyager Golden Record, a phonograph record containing a broad sample of the images, common sounds, languages, and music of Earth, sent into outer space with the two Voyager probes. Groundbreaking in terms of both its technical and its emotional impact, the Fifth has had a large influence on composers and music critics, and inspired work by such composers as Brahms, Tchaikovsky (his 4th Symphony in particular), Bruckner, Mahler, and Berlioz.
Music
Instrumentation
- piccolo (fourth movement only)
- two flutes
- two oboes
- two clarinets in B flat and C
- two bassoons
- contrabassoon or double bassoon (fourth movement only)
- two horns in E flat and C
- two trumpets
- three trombones (alto, tenor, and bass, fourth movement only)
- timpani (in G-C)
- violins
- violas
- cellos
- double basses
Form
- First movement: Allegro con brio
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| The Famous Four-Note Tune |
- A powerful first movement opens with the four-note motif, one of the most famous in Western music. It’s strikingly dramatic, with wonderful shades of orchestral colour, from the dark trombones to the sweet woodwinds. The sheer force of Beethoven's music is on top form here.
- Second movement: Andante con moto
- This lyrical movement is a lot calmer than the first, but still has some grand moments. It has two main themes which intertwine and have a little "theme and variations" game.
- The movement opens with an announcement of its theme, a melody in unison by violas and cellos, with accompaniment by the double basses. A second theme soon follows, with a harmony provided by clarinets, bassoons, and violins, with a triplet arpeggio in the violas and bass. A variation of the first theme reasserts itself. This is followed up by a third theme, thirty-second notes in the violas and cellos with a counter-phrase running in the flute, oboe, and bassoon. Following an interlude, the whole orchestra participates in a fortissimo, leading to a series of crescendos and a coda to close the movement.
- Third movement: Scherzo. Allegro
- The third movement is in ternary form, consisting of a scherzo and trio. It follows the traditional mold of Classical-era symphonic third movements, containing in sequence the main scherzo, a contrasting trio section, a return of the scherzo, and a coda. However, while the usual Classical symphonies employed a minuet and trio as their third movement, Beethoven chose to use the newer scherzo and trio form.
- The opening theme is answered by a contrasting theme played by the winds, and this sequence is repeated. Then the horns loudly announce the main theme of the movement, and the music proceeds from there.
- The trio section is in C major and is written in a contrapuntal texture. When the scherzo returns for the final time, it is performed by the strings pizzicato and very quietly.
- Fourth movement: Allegro
- The triumphant and exhilarating finale begins without interruption after the scherzo. It is written in an unusual variant of sonata form: at the end of the development section, the music halts on a dominant cadence, played fortissimo, and the music continues after a pause with a quiet reprise of the "horn theme" of the scherzo movement. The recapitulation is then introduced by a crescendo coming out of the last bars of the interpolated scherzo section, just as the same music was introduced at the opening of the movement.
- The Fifth Symphony finale includes a very long coda, in which the main themes of the movement are played in temporally compressed form. Towards the end the tempo is increased to presto. The symphony ends with 29 bars of C major chords, played fortissimo.
Beethoven Symphony No.5 (Full Movement) video :
Beethoven Symphony No.5 (Full Score) pdf file :
