Er…it’s not good the way we live, it’s not good, and, then you, um…at one moment you can hear the horns playing very loud “bang bang bang bang…” They say “let’s throw the emperor down to earth.”

 

Napoleon had briefly occupied Vienna in 1805, and the Fifth Symphony became a symbol for struggle and triumph.

 

So, it may have been that people hearing the Fifth Symphony at that time could identify it with this national struggle against France. And of course, there is an irony in that, that in the Second World War of this century, it became a symbol for the French resistance against German oppression. I suppose that says something about the universality of the music.

 

It’s very fitting that the Voyager satellites should be carrying Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as part of its message to aliens out there, because it’s a great portrait of human beings, we work hard, we try to build things, we get very angry and depressed, we’re trying to find our ways to our happiness, and in spite of our best efforts we very often fail, and we kind of come to an impasse just as in the symphony, it kind of comes to this…what next, what are we to do now…and then suddenly a little glimpse of hope…you can scarcely believe it’s true and then sure enough. We’re there.

 

Many pieces had begun in minor and ended in major, but this piece was the first one to systematically trace the journey. It was a model which was picked up by practically every other romantic symphonist to follow Beethoven.

 

At the first public performance of Beethoven’s Fifth in December 1808, the weather in Vienna was freezing cold. The musicians were under-rehearsed, and the concert went on for 4 hours. Even one of Beethoven’s admirers remarked:" you can easily have too much of a good thing."