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Three G's and an E-flat, or Why Beethoven Rules!

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Three G's and an E-flat, or Why Beethoven Rules!

By Richard Girard


Three G's and an E-flat. Bom-bom-bom-Bomb! The Morse Code three dots and a dash for "V," and "V" is for victory. Fate knocking on the door.


All of these descriptions have been used to describe the first four notes of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. And all of them are completely inadequate to describe the power and majesty of this orchestral masterpiece; or any of Beethoven's other voluminous folio of work.


I have been listening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony closely for over forty years, and I am still surprised at new discoveries almost every time I listen to this work of genius. This is the statement of a man who was very nearly deaf when he wrote this work, whose first movement is a shout of defiance at an implacable fate, whose final movement is the greatest statement of personal triumph of a man over the inevitability of loss ever made by a human being.


The body of Beethoven's work is more than just his Fifth Symphony. Many would argue that Beethoven's Ninth (The Chorale) is his greatest Symphony, others would argue for his Sixth (The Pastoral), the Third (The Eroica), or the Seventh (The Apotheosis of the Dance), as his best. But it is certain that no theme in Beethoven's Symphonies is better known than those three G's and an E-flat.


Beethoven began to go deaf in his late twenties, possibly from the effects of syphilis. As his deafness became more profound however, so did his music. By 1805 when his Third Symphony was first performed, he could only hear the very loudest sounds -- such as the crescendo of an orchestra -- or by the conduction of sound through his skull, by laying his head on the top of his pianoforte. Eight years later, when his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies were premiered, even that was denied to him.


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