For many listeners in 1976, the famous opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony stopped belonging to the concert hall and became something to dance to. The man responsible was a 23-year-old jingle writer, and the “band” credited on the label was just him, and he would go on years later to write the theme song for “Family Guy.”
“A Fifth of Beethoven” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Oct. 9, 1976. The single debuted at No. 80 and needed 19 weeks to reach the top, where it stayed for one week. It finished 1976 at No. 10 on Billboard’s year-end chart.
The title is a pun. A fifth is a standard bottle size for liquor, and the track adapts the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, a work written 175 years earlier.
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Walter Murphy came to the idea with real training. Born and raised in New York, he studied organ in addition to piano and wrote for his high school band and orchestra. He later studied jazz and classical piano at the Manhattan School of Music before writing commercial jingles in the early 1970s. In college, his interests included pop records built on classical themes, such as “Joy” by Apollo 100 and “A Lover’s Concerto” by The Toys. While working on a disco track for a commercial, a producer suggested updating classical music, something that had not been done in a while. Murphy recorded a demo tape that included his Beethoven adaptation and sent it to record labels in New York City.
Private Stock Records signed him, and the single was released May 29, 1976. The label encouraged a group credit, believing a band would sell better than a solo artist, so the record went out as Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band. Murphy and label owner Larry Uttal later learned that another Big Apple Band already existed. Later pressings credited the Walter Murphy Band, then Walter Murphy alone.
The song found a second audience in 1977, when it was included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. The recording also peaked at No. 28 in the United Kingdom. Murphy released further classical-disco fusions, including a version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee” called “Flight ’76,” plus adaptations of “Rhapsody in Blue” and “Bolero,” but none matched it. He reached the Hot 100 only two more times, and “Flight ’76” peaked at No. 44.
His career moved toward television and film. Murphy composed the theme songs for Family Guy and American Dad! and has worked with Seth MacFarlane on both Ted films. He also scored Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Commish, and he earned an Oscar nomination for “Everybody Needs a Best Friend,” a song from Ted.
Murphy, now 73, is still best known for the Beethoven adaptation that topped the chart 50 years ago this week.
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