ser's own wishes. On the other hand, there is no doubt that Beethoven made use of folk song melodies in many of his compositions. During the late part of his career, Beethoven made arrangements of over 150 folk songs, and his song cycle An Die Ferne Geliebte (1816) made extensive use of folk song material as "a basis for song composition." There are many other examples of the use of folk melodies to be found among Beethoven's later works. For example, "simple little tunes evocative of folksong and folkdance are constantly turning up in the late quartets and other music."
One of the strongest ways that Beethoven influenced romantic music was in his use of emotional expression. Beethoven's musical style was more expressive and individualistic than ever before. He often made use of expressive dynamics in his work, and he often scored the instruments to range from very soft to very loud within a few seconds. He also experimented with the highest and lowest possible registers of the instruments in order to further accentuate their expressiveness. In his earlier works, Beethoven frequently wrote in a musical language which has been described as "stormy, passionate, heroic, and of vast proportions." An example of this type of composition can be seen in the famous Fifth Symphony, which was written in 1808. According to the description of Julian Rushton, a wide range of emotions can be experienced in the four individual movements of the Fifth Symphony. Thus, the first movement is fatalistic and grim; the second movement is sinister; the third movement is hymn-like, and the final movement is optimistic and triumphant. According to the musicologist George Grove, the expressiveness of the Fifth Symphony shows that Beethoven was the "prophet" of the Romantic movement. Furthermore, Grove claims that the Fifth Symphony was romanticism's "first great and assured triumph." In his later period, which ranged from approximately 1815 to his...