Beethovens Fifth Symphony If you are part of society, I think it is safe to make the assumption you are familiar with and have heard Symphony No. five by Beethoven. Whether it was a theme in movieor part of an advertisement on TV, it captured your attention and added emotion andexcitement to the particular segment that it coincided with. Total unification and thepervasive use of a single motif combine to make the Fifth Symphony, which had one ofthe longest gestation periods of any Beethoven work, the first in which all movements areshown plainly to be part of a cyclic design. The famous motif which dominates the firstmovement in the form also makes significant appearances that are dramatic entrances inthe other three. This feature gives the Fifth Symphony its widespread popularity that ithas had over so many generations. Tonal unity is provided by the close relationshipbetween the parallel keys of C minor (the tonic) and C major, and the gradual yielding ofthe minor to major in the course of the work. To help achieve this transfer of c control,from minor to major, Beethoven is obliged to make an important change the traditionalKey relationships of a sonata movement in a minor key. Instead of having the tonic minorgovern the entire recapitulation in the first movement, he brings back the second subjectin the tonic major, as a simple transposition rather than the fundamental recasting. (Inthis respect the movement anticipates the Romantic concept of thematic integrity and by,extension, the idea of the theme as the focal point of a composition.) The fifth Symphony in C minor is rightly considered the paradigm of Beethovenssymphonies; the various alternatives to sonata form, explored in the piano works, are putto one side here in favor of the more rigorous example of Mozart, which is, however,raised to a superbly spectacular level.(Pestelli p.236) According to Pestelli, No otherpiece had ever organized the principles of contrast w...
