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Both in length and in forces used, the Ninth is Beethoven's biggest symphony. Yet in it he dispenses, for the first time in a symphonic movement, with the traditional repeat of the exposition. Evidently it was not mere length he was aiming for, but breadth of scale and perfect proportion. And as soon as we realize that the "size" of the Ninth Symphony is as much metaphysical as physical, all of its apparent anomalies fall into place.