Another great work which was completed about this time was the Symphony in C minor (The Fifth).  Here we have a work wholly subjective.  It reflects his soul experiences.  His approaching deafness brought him face to face with the greatest trouble of his life.  The malady progressed slowly but steadily, and rendered him at times hopeless.  His suffering, his despair, his resignation and final triumph are embodied in it.  It is a subtle analysis of some of the deep problems of life.  The history of his own mental state is depicted here.  If we consider his malady in its bearing on his life, we have the story of Tantalus told again.  Here was a man whose thoughts translated themselves into splendid tone-pictures which the orchestra was to portray.  With the mental equipment to create a new era in his art, the medium by which he could apprehend his works was being closed to him.  “Is a blind painter to be imagined?” asks Wagner in this connection.  If we can imagine a great painter painting his masterpieces, but never being permitted to see any, an analogy may be found in the exclusion of Beethoven from all participation in the rendering of his works, which was the case in his later years, being unable even to conduct them.  He wanted to test his work, to ascertain how it would sound in the concert hall, and even at this time the high tones of the violins, which he put to such exquisite uses in later years, and which were such an inspiration to Wagner, were lost to him.  By the aid of his philosophy, however, he accepted the situation, resolving to make the best of it; to keep on achieving, to turn his defeats into victories.  Beethoven’s symphonies mean much in their application to the common life of humanity.  Knowing them even approximately, we often find texts which illumine them in the writings of men who went below the surface of things, Emerson, or Carlyle, or Schopenhauer.  Thus Carlyle, writing on Dante says:  “He has opened the deep unfathomable oasis of woe that lay in the soul of man; he has opened the living fountains of hope, also of penitence.”  Does not the mind instantly revert to the C minor Symphony?

Next in the order of Beethoven’s great works comes the Pastoral Symphony, named at first “Recollections of country life.”  Easily comprehended, as any picture of country life should be, he yet deemed it necessary to give a short explanation at each movement, illustrating the meaning which he wished to convey, although he qualifies this with the words, “mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei.” [An expression of sensibility rather than painting.] In everything relating to his art Beethoven was tentative.  In the sketch-book of this Symphony there is an inscription in his handwriting, “Man ueberlaesst den Zuhoerer sich selbst die Situationen auszufinden.” [The hearer should be left to find out the situations for himself,] showing that, on considering the matter carefully he changed his mind, and concluded after all, that the explanations were permissible.