Part 2
At the first performance in 1808 Beethoven repeated the whole of the scherzo and trio -a procedure familiar to us in his Fourth, Sixth, and Seventh Symphonies, but not in the Fifth. Oddly enough, he left in the big repeat of the first section of the finale; but conductors nearly always omit this, perhaps feeling that it upsets the proportions of the work. With the extra repetition of the scherzo and trio, however, the repeat of the finale's exposition becomes obviously essential, if only to delay more strikingly the sudden reappearance of the obsessive scherzo theme later on. Beethoven's instructions about shortening the scherzo are not Perfectly clear; whatever one's views, it can only be exciting to hear the symphony in the form in which he first gave it to the world.
Robert Simpson