Your Favorite Beethoven Symphony?

An impossible question.

You might a well ask which is our Favorite sky. Favorite food. Favorite porn idol.

For me, the transition from the third to the fourth movement in Beethoven's Fifth is one of the greatest bits of music of all time.

The third movement gets so quiet you can hear a pin drop and then BOOM the dam has broken and you water is going everywhere.

I get chills every time I listen to it.

R1 Sky in Moscow

Anything my Grandmother cooked growing up.

Marcus Mojo

[quote] you water is going everywhere.

My 'water' only does that in the climactic orgasm in the choral version of Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe.

Oh dear, there are already 5 other threads asking this same question.

There's another thread about Beethoven's conversations with Freud.

Symphony No. 9

The others don’t come close in it’s gloriousness

I'm surprised the Seventh is doing so well.

OP, why did you include the Choral Fantasy? It's a precursor to the 9th but not a full symphonic work. Was it to round out the poll to 10 options (which wasn't necessary)?

R7 I love the Choral Fantasy. One of the first classical music pieces I ever heard, so I added it.

To get the full Beethoven effect, you have to add it in between 8 and 9.

1, 2 & 4 deserve more respect.

symphony 5, movement 2 might be my favorite piece of classical music ever. well, it's up there among several at least

Number 9...just wow.

Paavo Järvi

Esa-Pekka Salonen

[quote]I'm surprised the Seventh is doing so well.

It's that second movement.

[quote]1, 2 & 4 deserve more respect.

I agree completely, R9, but I have to ask: "Then why didn't you vote for one of those?!?"

The 5th hands down. It's literally fate knocking at the door!

R15, Wund (not Prtty) is love.

[quote] It's that second movement.

It's the fourth movement for me.

It’s all of Seventh.

Everyone loves the Seventh.

It is the most approachable and easiest to enjoy.

[quote] Richard Wagner said it was perfect dance music, calling it “the apotheosis of the dance.” “if anyone plays the Seventh, tables and benches, cans and cups, the grandmother, the blind and the lame, aye, the children in the cradle fall to dancing.”

My grandmother used to talk about this but I never understood why you needed a special oven just for beets. I mean, just use the regular oven already.

R18 I like how he played with rhythms and that he was modernizing and adapting from classic to romantic. I just love Beethoven, but every movement in the Seventh does something different to my soul. The other symphonies are highly enjoyable but they don’t have the same emotional impact for some reason.