Choose the best answers according to the passage. Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven) 1 Symphony No. 5 was written by Ludwig van Beethoven between 1804 - 1808. This symphony is one of the most popular and best-known compositions in all classical music, and one of the most often played symphonies. 2 It begins by stating a distinctive four-note “short-short-short-long” motif twice. The symphony, and the four-note opening motif in particular, are well-known worldwide. Such a motif appears frequently in popular culture from disco and rock and roll to appearances in film and television. The initial motif of the symphony has been believed by some to be a symbol of fate knocking at the door. This idea comes from Beethoven’s secretary Anton Schindler. He once wrote that, one day, Beethoven pointed to the beginning of the first movement and said: “Thus fate knocks at the door!” 3 There is another tale by Antony Hopkins concerning the same motif. Beethoven’s pupil, Carl Czerny, claimed that the little pattern of notes had come to Beethoven from a yellow-hammer’s song. Beethoven heard the song as he walked in the Prater Park in Vienna. Hopkins says that “given the choice between a yellow-hammer and fate-at-the-door, the public has preferred the more dramatic myth, though Czerny’s account is too unlikely to have been invented.” 4 The first sketches of The Fifth Symphony date from 1804 following the completion of The Third Symphony. However, Beethoven repeatedly interrupted his work on The Fifth to prepare other compositions. He was in his mid-thirties during this time. His personal life was troubled by increasing deafness. In the world at large, the period was marked by the Napoleonic Wars, political turmoil in Austria, and the occupation of Vienna by Napoleon’s troops in 1805. 5 The symphony was first performed in Vienna in 1808 and directed by Beethoven himself. It soon acquired its central status in the repertoire. Groundbreaking both in terms of its technical and emotional impact, The Fifth has had a large influence on composers and music critics. It also inspired works by such composers as Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler and so on. Words and phrases: