Symphony no. 5 in C minor, op. 67 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Few symphonies are immediately recognized by their number only – with no reference to composer, key or opus number. The Fifth Symphony (by Ludwig van Beethoven, of course) is undoubtedly one of them. It is one of the most canonical works in Western classical music, possibly the most famous and performed of all. Since its premiere in Vienna in December 1808, many explanations and interpretations have been given to it, starting with the legend that the opening motive is "fate knocking at the door" (originally circulated by Anton Schindler, Beethoven’s pupil and one of the least reliable sources of the composer’s biography), and to the use of the motive by the BBC as the opening to news reports during World War II. Two interesting coincidences associated the symphony with the Allies’ slogan "V for Victory" during the war: the letter V marks the symphony’s number, five, in Roman numerals, and the Morse code for it is similar to the rhythm of the famous opening motive (short-short-short-long). The earliest known sketches for the C minor symphony appear in Beethoven’s notebooks from 1804, the time he completed his Third Symphony ("Eroica"). Beethoven worked on the C minor symphony slowly and gradually, while composing his Fourth Symphony, the Piano ca. 31 mins. Concerto no. 4, the Violin Concerto, the opera Leonora (early version of Fidelio) and other pieces at the same time. Violinist and composer Louis Schlösser, who met Beethoven in 1822, asked him to describe his composition process, and Beethoven commented, in a rare moment of this kind: "The working-out in breadth, length, height and depth begins in my head, and since I am conscious of what I want, the basic idea never leaves me. It rises, grows upward, and I hear and see the picture as a whole take shape and stand forth before me as though cast in a single piece, so that all that is left is the work of writing it down." Such a description, which compares the process to the growth of an organism, is especially fitting of the symphony at hand: a short four-note motive, much like a living cell, metastasizes until it becomes a fully developed piece. The cohesion of ideas is one of the symphony’s most striking features, and even though thematic unity was not an original idea, Beethoven took it to an extreme. The opening motive appears in almost every measure in the first movement, recurring in different disguises in the movements to follow. Beethoven is strongly associated with developing the symphony as a genre. He developed it and established its central place in the Allegro con brio Andante con moto Scherzo: Allegro Allegro
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