Which is your favourite symphony by Beethoven?

Yeah, the Ninth for me too. Not just for the finale: the first three movements are wonderful, and there’s sublimity in the Adagio.

It’s hard to do favourites, and I love all the odd-numbered symphonies (apart from the 1st, which is still Mozart on Red Bull, as JM Cortese put it). The 5th and 7th are both extremely tight constructions. But I’m too jaded now for their optimism to work on me like it used to.