The premiere of this work in December 1813 ranks among the greatest successes Beethoven ever celebrated in public as a composer. One reviewer wrote at the time that in its themes the new symphony was ''so favourable and easily comprehensible that every music lover falls for the powerful allure of its beauty''. The incisiveness of the themes is fundamentally related to the basic ostinato rhythms, which help shape each movement’s distinctive character. Richard Wagner even called the composition, w