ABSTRACT
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is one of the most discussed and analyzed compositions in the literature. The vilification of Schindler, accused of destroying hundreds of Beethoven’s conversation notebooks and falsifying a number of entries in the remaining ones. In the Fifth Symphony, however, Beethoven elevates the role of this knock to a different level. Unlike its prototypes, Beethoven’s “Fate” motif spawns an entire symphony and biographically corresponds to Beethoven’s preoccupation with his own fate. For a composer in Beethoven’s time, one of the most important decisions was to choose the correct key for a composition. The only timbre and key Beethoven shuns—except for brief moments in the closing section of the recapitulation—is the brass playing the “Fate” motto in C major. The Allegro revisits the confrontation presented in the first movement, but in reverse: it is a series of back-and-forth interchanges, in which piteous entreaties are answered by implacable retorts of Fate.
