The popular name for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the Symphony of Fate or Fate Symphony (in original German Schicksals-Sinfonie).
The full and original name of Beethoven’s Fifth is Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67. He started making the first notes of his musical ideas for this symphony in 1804, right after the Eroica Symphony (his Third). The progress initially was slow, only ideas, and he had worked on the Fifth with more focus from 1807, and finished the symphony in 1808. The premiere of the Fifth Symphony was in 1808, in Vienna’s Theater an der Wien.
What are the origins of this name, Fate Symphony or Symphony of Fate? It is not proven and there is no evidence for Beethoven ever calling the Fifth the Fate Symphony. It was Anton Schindler, his unreliable secretary who told the world this story. Schindler was not unreliable for being late or forgetting tasks, but rather for destroying evidence, forging history and making up fake stories about his relationship with Beethoven. According to Schindler, the composer told him about the first notes, “Thus fate knocks at the door!”
Years before the publication if this quote, Schindler had written an article about his own experience with the Fifth. In it he wrote, he always felt this music was about a hero’s struggle with fate. What was earlier, the chicken or the egg… we will never know!
There is no way to know whether Beethoven did say that, but we all feel it may be true! In fact, Beethoven knew about that door all too well! It was the annoying knock on his door, and his stumble and fall that first made his ears buzzing. As he later said, “I found myself deaf, and have been so ever since.”
|Related: At what age did Beethoven go deaf?
The music itself tells us something similar, too! The first four notes (the Fate-motif, in German Schicksals-Motiv) and the first movement implies a narrative about something big, something menacing, like an attack on life – probably by fate. The Symphony starts with this life-and-death struggle in dark C minor and ends in light, in C major, in triumph.
Beethoven left the narrative open, but Symphony of Fate or Fate Symphony seems to be a catchy name with substance!
