The Secrets Of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

The 90-minute programme will explore the story behind the German composer’s most famous symphonic work. Often cited as one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, the opening notes of the fifth symphony are amongst the most recognisable in the history of music, but the inspiration behind it is less clear. Many believe that Beethoven is railing against fate and his deafness in this piece – which was composed in Vienna between 1804 and 1808 – but in this documentary Gardiner argues that the music features a little-known, radical message expressing Beethoven’s belief in the ideals of the French Revolution, and shows how his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique convey that message in their performance of the Fifth Symphony. To investigate Gardiner’s theory, Hislop will visit the German city of Bonn, where Beethoven was born, raised and exposed to radical ideas, and Paris, where a new wave of composers were creating original compositions in a musical revolution that mirrored the political movement of the era. He will also go to Vienna, where the composer lived from 1792, visiting the apartment where he wrote the bulk of his Fifth Symphony and the Theater an der Wien, where the premiere of the work took place in 1808.