This 1904 book by composer, conductor and pianist Felix Weingartner examines the development of the symphony as a musical form since one of its greatest practitioners, Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven's symphonic works gave the symphony an unprecedented importance as an art form and inspired his contemporaries and later composers to take it more seriously. Weingartner helped create a widespread appreciation for Beethoven's symphonies through his writings on, and performances of, these works. He conducted all of Beethoven's symphonies, and was the first conductor to make commercial recordings of all nine of them.