Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is an angry work, heralded as a cry for freedom in the heroic mode. The unforgettable four-note beginning identifies what may well be the most famous symphony ever written. The Fifth is not only the work of a musical giant at the height of his powers, but the culmination of a painful gestation period in the personal history of the great composer as he realized that his deafness would be permanent, and that his few tentative hopes for a normal life, including marriage, were not to be.
The shock of the Fifth highlights a resolute affirmation of defiance against inexorable fate whose inevitability can still become transcendent—at least in the hands of a consummate genius. Yet the Fifth is not an isolated phenomenon in Beethoven’s output. The Third Symphony should be regarded as its altruistic progenitor—the “child” of the Fifth with the Fifth as the “angry parent.” This can best be understood if one realizes that Beethoven was much influenced by the 18th-century Enlightenment and cannot be easily classified as a purely Romantic composer. Yet the paradox of genius is that, while both symphonies are often cited as noble testaments of Beethoven’s all-embracing humanistic beliefs, his restless talents are too much a creative eruption of his own volatile, sometime hostile personality. Both the Third and Fifth symphonies are emblematic of an uncontrollably creative psyche, without which they would not have universal appeal for more than two centuries. Whatever noble instincts one attaches to Beethoven’s symphonic output, the works are never less than searingly personal.
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The Third Symphony begins and ends with a simple dance tune, transformed into a glorious outburst of faith in man’s resilience in struggling with destiny. The contrasting plaintive and desperate outbursts of the superb second movement funeral march were unmatched even by later Richard Wagner. The ingenuity with which Beethoven changes keys to ennoble the motifs in the first and last movements is nothing less than thrilling. Yet the Third’s thoughtful sublimation seems more restrained and plaintive—a gentler but more extended dry run for what will surface as the Fifth. As Jan Swafford points out in his massive new biography of Beethoven, art itself is a mystery transcending language. The anger contained in the Fifth—one of the shortest and most economical of symphonies—cannot conceal Beethoven’s anguished plea for compassion bursting within its musical turmoil.
The Fifth is a masterpiece of disguise. The four-note opening is quickly followed by a series of contrasts between musical elements ingeniously surrounding those notes, but for all of its musical rampage, Beethoven never departs from the tight-hewn classic structure that is his trademark. He is a classical composer, and as Swafford points out, the logic of the piece is never abstract. It remains full of communicative meaning up to the dramatic final coda. The second movement is tender and beautiful but optimistic in its own way, unlike the funeral march of the Third Symphony. It prepares us for the horn motif introducing the third movement, no idle scherzo but a presentiment of things to come. The horn introduction is followed by contrapuntal contrast between a secondary motif, which is about as playful as the work gets. The finale is the much-anticipated cry of joy and redemption. It almost goes on too long, since we have already conceded surrender to Beethoven’s powerful assertion, but is thrilling to listen to, and affirms Swafford’s assertion that art is a mystery beyond words.
Beethoven’s creative genius remains a hallmark of world culture and if that culture is universal for all times and places, one of its greatest achievements is the spare economy of the Fifth Symphony. In barely 34 minutes of music, Beethoven has encapsulated the struggle of the human spirit in its search for dignity and meaning in a hostile world.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra performs Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, May 21-24 at the Pabst Theater, 144 E. Wells St. For tickets, call 414-291-7605 or visit mso.org.
