In contrast with the later symphonies, the First and Second seem without the rare personality of the composer. Yet when the First Symphony appeared its opening was regarded as daring; and there is the seriousness of purpose that is found in all of his greater compositions. In the Second the introduction is built on broader foundations; there is a warmth in the slow movement that was unusual for the time, and the scherzo is new in character. But in the Heroic, Beethoven laid the cornerstone of modern symphonic music. It was written with a definite aim; the glorification of a great man. The instrumentation is noticeable in a historical sense on account of the treatment of the orchestra as a whole; the balance of the parts, the conversations, the antiphonal choirs. The Funeral March is the departure from the traditional slow movement that was generally devoted to prettiness or the display of genteel emotion. And in this symphony the scherzo is Shakesperian in spirit where melancholy or grimness is mingled with the jesting. It has been said that the last movement of the Haydn Symphony was designed to send the audience home in gay spirits; but with Beethoven the finale became the crown of the work. The finale of the Heroic is not as impressive as are the preceding movements; but it abounds in interesting detail, and was in its day a remarkable revelation. The Fourth is built on a lesser scale, and yet as Berlioz well said, the adagio defies analysis, "the movement that seems to have been sighed by the Archangel Michael when, a prey to melancholy, he contemplated from the threshold of heaven the worlds below him." In the Fifth Beethoven rid himself completely of the shackles of conventionality. It is the story in music of the composer's defiance of Fate, the battling of man with nature and unseen forces. Here trombones and contra fagott appeared for the first time in the history of the symphony. The Sixth is full of peace and serenity and joy in life that comes from the contemplation of Nature, and stands in strong contrast with the sublime struggle and exulting triumph of the Fifth. The Seventh is perhaps the most truly romantic and sensuously beautiful of all. Joy and sorrow, humor and wild passion alternate in its strongly contrasted movements. This great work, together with the three string quartets, Op. 59, are held by some musicians to be the highest manifestation of subjective feeling and ideal beauty that musical art has yet revealed. In conciseness of form the Eighth is almost a return to earlier conditions, but in concentrated power and joyousness it is one of the most remarkable and Beethovenish. He himself described it as a "little symphony in F." The substitution of the Ariel-like and humorous _allegretto_ in place of the slow movement, and the use of the _menuetto_ are eminently characteristic. The Choral Symphony stands alone in the history of music. It is said that the first three movements