Beethoven Symphony No. 5

Rachmaninoff's relationship with the symphony as a genre was famously complicated. The catastrophic premiere of his First Symphony is legendary: a badly prepared orchestra, a possibly drunk conductor, and critics who were ready to plunge a knife into the young composer's self-con ...  Show more

When the great pianist and composer Frederic Chopin decided to write a piano sonata in 1837, fashions had turned against the genre itself. Perhaps it was a feeling that Beethoven had essentially "finished" the genre, or perhaps it was a sense that a non-Germanic composer couldn't ...  Show more

You know Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. You’ve heard it in films, advertisements, parodied in Saturday morning cartoons and disco-ized in Saturday Night Fever. The Fifth Symphony is a given, so much so that it blends into the background. You know this piece, but how well? Of all the ...  Show more

When we listen closely to the Fifth, we hear a testament to self-expression and determination. Which means that we get to decide how to honor this symphony today, whether that means taking a break from Beethoven to commission new works from underrepresented composers, bringing ne ...  Show more

More than just 'da da da dum!

Beethoven's 5th Symphony accompanied Sir Robin Knox-Johnston on the regular Bombay to Basra route he sailed during his early days in the Merchant Navy.

Archaeologist and crime novelist, Dana Cameron, spent many a long day in a dark, ...