Open Rehearsal: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 | Beethoven & Romanticism

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No.4
Symphony No. 5

Beethoven composed his Fourth and Fifth symphonies almost concurrently, but they’re very different in their expressive impact. The Fourth is one of Beethoven’s warmest, most congenial works, sharing that mood with the Violin Concerto completed just after the symphony. The Fifth Symphony, by contrast, creates wonderful intensity through the famous four-note “fate” motif—perhaps the most famous musical fragment of all time—and resolves that tension in a triumphant finale.