How many symphonies did Beethoven write?

An introduction to the 19th-century composer Beethoven's nine great orchestral symphonies

Published: March 19, 2024 at 1:31 pm

Beethoven composed nine complete symphonies.

Beethoven first played around with writing a symphony in 1796, but it wasn't until 1800 that his official First Symphony, in C major, was premiered. He went on to compose nine complete symphonies, culminating with the groundbreaking Choral Symphony in D minor, which was first heard in 1824.

• A Guide to Beethoven's Symphony No. 1

• A Guide to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5

Sketches for a Tenth Symphony exist, but Beethoven didn't finish the piece. In the 1980s, musicologist Barry Cooper assembled the surviving material to create a performable version, which was played by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1988 and published by Universal Edition in 2013.

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Beethoven is reported to have said that one of his preoccupations was the form a tenth symphony should take, as he wished 'to create in it a new gravitational force… this time without a chorus'.

• Composer guide: Beethoven

• The 10 greatest symphonies according to Twitter

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