Beethoven’s Fifths

JSTOR: Musical Times: Vol. 80, No. 1154, p. 257

Beethoven: “Well, who has prohibited the use of fifths like these?”

Ries: “Bless me, they are forbidden by the very fundamental rules of harmony . . . By Marpurg, Kirnberger, Fux, every theorist who has ever written on the subject.”

Beethoven: “Well, they may have forbidden them, but I allow them.”

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