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during a tumultuous and idealistic period. Revolutions in America and France had turned the theories of the Enlightenment into political reality, and a sense of freedom and new possibilities was in the air. More intimately, his perseverance through the loss of his hearing, a variety of other infir- mities, loneliness, and periods of acute despondency seems—even to our own skeptical, if not cynicäl, era—a singularly heroic achievement. There was no reason for Beethoven's art to be any more constrained or resigned than he himself was, so it is not surprising that he should soon have grown impatient with the comparatively delicate musical language of the preceding generation. Beginning in about 1803, the composer struck out on what he descnbed to a friend as "a new path," one that led to a dynamic expansion of virtually all aspects of his composing: to weightier sonorities, bolder gestures, more thorough development of thematic ideas, a greatly enlarged vocabulary of harmonic possibili ties, and a heightened sense of musical drama. Beethoven's "new path" led inevit- ably, it would seem, to the Fifth Symphony. Beethoven’s earliest Sketches contain the celebrated four-note motif that opens the work. This motif, the figure that the com poser associated with fate, dominates the first movement, and its brevity and rhyth- mic vigor account in no small part for the sense of agitation and momentum that pre- vail here. Beethoven relaxes the pace only briefly with the lyrical second theme, and the plaintive oboe cadenza that embell- ishes the recapitulation of the opening Paragraph late in the movement. The Andante con moto that follows is con- structed as a fluid set of variations on not one but a pair of themes—a format favored by Beethoven's former teacher, Joseph Haydn. This is an exceptionally beautiful movement. The alternation of the two sub- jects and their respective tonal centers yields a sense of variety and spaciousness, and the prevailing lyricism provides a timely contrast to the turbulent spirit of the open ing movement, a few Strong outbursts notwithstanding. The ensuing Scherzo is another matter. Here, the theme softly stated by the low strings in the opening measures seems ghostly and ominous, and its menacing aspect is confirmed moments later by a dis- turbing reappearance of the "fate" motif of the first movement. Following the central section, or trio, in which the Orchestra chases the rumbling basses and cellos in fugal Imitation, the spectral dance resumes. And then, Beethoven creates a moment of extraordinary drama. The spectral dance freezes in mid-step as time and motion are suspended. Slowly, its theme is taken and transformed measure by measure until, with a thrilling crescendo, the music bursts into the radiant C-major finale. Trombones, making their first appearance in any familiär symphony, join the orchestra in a blaze of light and victory. The drama is not yet over, however. In the middle of this fourth movement, we sud- denly return to the "fate" motif and the ghostly atmosphere of the Scherzo. That stroke, so widely admired by subsequent generations of composers, prepares a reca pitulation not only of the movement's themes but also of the dramatic passage from darkness to light, from despair to joy, which is the essence of the finale and the goal of the entire Symphony. —Copyright © 2012 by Paul Schiavo
