In fact, Beethoven did something braver than dying. He gathered his courage and went on writing music, though he could hear what he wrote only more and more faintly. He wrote his best music, the music we remember him for, after he became deaf. The music he wrote was very different from any that had been composed before. Instead of the elegant and stately music that earlier musicians had written for their wealthy listeners, Beethoven wrote stormy, exciting, revolutionary music, which reminds us of his troubled and courageous life. He grew to admire courage more than anything, and he called one of his symphonies the Eroica or Heroic Symphony, to celebrate the memory of a great man. Describing the dramatic opening notes of his famous Fifth Symphony, he said, "Thus fate knocks on the door.