Beethoven's Fifth

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, performed in 1808, was not only thrilling; it was totally different. Revolutionary.

The British novelist E.M. Forster called it "the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated the human ear." 

In his superb biography of the composer, subtitled "Anguish and Triumph," Jan Swafford writes of another composer, Jean-Francois Lesueur, teacher of Berlioz, who heard an early performance of the Fifth. 

And "after the final chords, [he] emerged from the hall so excited and upset that when he tried to put on his hat, he could not locate his head."