]

SYMPHONY NO. 5[150]

[Footnote 150: This is not given in the Supplement. See preceding
remarks apropos of the Third Symphony. The comments are based, as
usual, on the full orchestral score.]

The _Fifth Symphony in C minor_, op. 67, is deservedly popular because
it is so human; a translation, in fact, of life itself into the
glowing language of music. Beethoven's emotional power was so deep and
true that, in expressing himself, he spoke, like every great
philosopher, poet or artist, for all mankind. Which one of us in his
own experience, has not felt the same protests against relentless Fate
that find such uncontrollable utterance in the first movement? Who,
again, is untouched by that angelic message, set before us in the
second movement, of hope and aspiration, of heroic and even
_warlike_[151] resolution, mingled with the resignation which only
great souls know? The third movement (Allegro)--in reality a Scherzo
of the most fantastic type, though not so marked--might well typify
the riddle of the Universe. We indeed "see through a glass darkly,"
and yet there is no note of despair. Amid the sinister mutterings of
the basses there ring out, on the horns and trumpets, clarion calls to
action. While we are in this world we must live its life; a living
death is unendurable. The Finale, Allegro maestoso, is a majestic
declaration of unconquerable faith and optimism--the intense
expression of Beethoven's own words, "I will grapple with Fate, it
shall never pull me down"--to be compared only with Browning's "God's
in his heaven, all's right with the world," and the peroration to
Whitman's _Mystic Trumpeter_, "Joy, joy, over all joy!" No adequate
attempt could be made to translate the music into words. The Symphony
is extremely subjective; indeed, autobiographic. For all historical
details as to its composition, the reader is referred to the Grove
essay,[152] and for eulogistic rhapsodies nothing can surpass the
essay of Berlioz, that prince of critics. We shall content ourselves
with a few comments of a structural nature and then trust the student
to seek a performance of the work by a good orchestra. Of the first
movement (Allegro con brio)[153] the dominant characteristics,
especially in comparison with the wealth of material in the _Heroic_,
are conciseness and intensity. It starts at once, without prelude,
with the motive--one of the tersest in music--from which is developed,
polyphonically, the first theme, _e