Infinite Interest in Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (Guide)

In the first of Tom Service’s new blog series (TheGuardian), Service digests Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, the famous, most influential symphonic creation of all time.

Service notes that the 5th Symphony is so familiar today that we fail to even hear the notes properly. This is just among the first instances that we take music for granted. Service further points out that a symphony’s opening is the single most forceful, exhilarating, and recognizable opening to music that we actually need to see it more as a complex and multi-layered aspect of symphonies

ETA Hoffman, wrote, “[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”. Even as music is considered “pure” or abstract, we should never lose sight of what symphony’s real purpose is. The familiarity of The Fifth is not a sign of its exhaustion, but rather its “endless potential for renewal.”

Read more about this and Tom Service’s other commentaries on keeping “stunned” by the 5th symphony:theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/sep/16/symphony-guide-beethoven-fifth-tom-service