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KF5JRV > TODAY 22.12.24 10:29z 16 Lines 2360 Bytes #1 (0) @ WW
BID : 2726_KF5JRV
Subj: Today in History - Dec 22
Path: SR1BSZ<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<N3HYM<WG3K<KA1VSC<VE3CGR<KF5JRV
Sent: 241222/1025Z 2726@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.23
On December 22, 1808, Ludwig van Beethovenâ€Ös Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67â€öthe “Fifth Symphony”â€öreceives its world premiere. It would soon become the worldâ€Ös most recognizable piece of classical music.
If the initial reviews failed to recognize it as one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, one needs to understand the adverse conditions under which the work was first heard. The concert venue was freezing cold; it was more than two hours into a mammoth four-hour program before the piece began; and the orchestra played poorly enough that day to force the nearly deaf composerâ€öalso acting as conductor and pianistâ€öto stop the ensemble partway into one passage and start again from the very beginning. It was, all in all, a very inauspicious beginning.
Also premiering that day at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna were Beethovenâ€Ös Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, and the Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68â€öthe “Pastoral Symphony.” But it was the Fifth Symphony that, despite its shaky premiere, would eventually be recognized as Beethovenâ€Ös greatest achievement to that point in his career. Writing in 1810, the critic E.T.A. Hoffman praised Beethoven for having outstripped the great Haydn and Mozart with a piece that “opens the realm of the colossal and immeasurable to us…evokes terror, fright, horror, and pain, and awakens that endless longing that is the essence of Romanticism.”
That assessment would stand the test of time, and the Fifth Symphony would quickly become a centerpiece of the classical repertoire for orchestras around the world. But beyond its revolutionary qualities as a serious composition, the Fifth Symphony has also proven to be a work with enormous pop-cultural staying power, thanks primarily to its powerful four-note opening motifâ€öthree short Gs followed by a long E-flat. Used in World War II-era Britain to open broadcasts of the BBC because it mimicked the Morse-code “V” for “Victory,” and used in the disco-era United States by Walter Murphy as the basis for his unlikely #1 pop hit “A Fifth Of Beethoven,” the opening notes of Beethovenâ€Ös Fifth Symphony have become a kind of instantly recognizable musical shorthand since they were first heard by the public.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
Email KF5JRV@gmail.com
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