Beethoven’s nine symphonies, composed over a period of around 25 years between 1799 and 1824, were already regarded as his musical legacy soon after his death. The composer explores the entire spectrum of the genre, finding in each work new solutions for the fundamental problem of how to find the right balance between motivic unity and distinctive characters for each movement. What proved pioneering was how he made the symphony a prolific vehicle for developing musical ideas, ranging from the he