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to the late musicologist Michael Steinberg, has a special function, serving both to
disrupt and to integrate. The contrasting slow movement, Andante con moto, plainly
and distinctly sets forth a long melody as its principal subject; then a series of variations
follow. Mystery dominates again in the third movement, a scherzo, Allegro, which runs
without pause directly into the noble finale, Allegro which introduces the sound of
the trombone to the orchestra for the first time in the history of music. Piccolo and
contrabassoon also participate in the finale. Steinberg described the last movement
as a motion “into the sureness and daylight” with the transition into the major key.
He summed up Beethoven’s achievement succinctly, “The victory symphony was a
new kind of symphony, and Beethoven’s invention here of a path from strife to triumph
became a model for symphonic writing to the present day.”

Over the years, two critics in particular have in some way grasped the essence of
this symphony with only a few words. Amadeus Wendt wrote: “Beethoven’s music
inspires in its listeners awe, fear, horror, pain, and that exquisite nostalgia that is the
soul of romanticism.” E.T.A. Hoffmann called the symphony “one of the most important
works of the master whose position in the first rank of composers of instrumental
music can now be denied by no one... It is a concept of genius, executed with profound
deliberation, which in a very high degree brings the romantic content of the music to
expression.”

Symphony No. 5 is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two
bassoons, contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and
strings. The piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombone only play in the last movement,
where they greatly enrich the sound of the orchestra.

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