Famous works · Classical / early Romantic
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
Composed 1804–1808 · premiered 22 December 1808, Vienna
Four notes that became the most famous opening in music, and a journey from struggle to triumph.
The story behind it
Beethoven worked on the symphony for years while his hearing was failing — a crisis he had confessed in the 1802 Heiligenstadt Testament.
It premiered in a freezing, four-hour concert at the Theater an der Wien alongside the Sixth Symphony, the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Choral Fantasy. The orchestra was under-rehearsed.
E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1810 review called it a revelation of the infinite, helping to shape the Romantic idea of instrumental music as the highest art.
What to listen for
- The short-short-short-long motif appearing in every movement.
- The hushed bridge from the scherzo straight into the C-major finale, where trombones join for the first time in a symphony.