Programme

Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67

André De Ridder Conductor

Are there four more famous notes in classical music? Beethoven wrote his famous Fifth Symphony between 1804 and 1808.

The four-note opening motif is commonly thought to be fate knocking on the door, although there is little evidence that this was what Beethoven had intended.

Author E.T.A. Hoffman, a contemporary of Beethoven’s, wrote that the Fifth Symphony “sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain, and awakens that infinite yearning which is the essence of Romanticism.”