Following the excesses of the Eroica, Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony (1806) represents a return to the more modest dimensions of traditional symphonies. If one were to seek a common denominator for Symphonies 4 to 6, then it would perhaps be the fact that the symphonic “ego” is no longer portrayed in terms of the lonely hero but instead is confronted with a range of different realities and “environments” – the classical tradition in the Fourth, a malevolent force in the Fifth, and nature in the Sixth. The Fifth Symphony (1808) is a masterpiece not just of motivic construction and narrative psychology but also in terms of instrumentation. With his Pastoral Symphony (1808) Beethoven fully exploited the possibilities of musical narrative using sounds alone; the symphonies that followed were to take an entirely different route.