///Then you haven't heard his last three piano sonatas or the Diabelli Variations or the five late quartets.

The phrase you quote from the symphony is in the manner of an operatic recitative. It is a highly-theatrical reaction to the three previous movements, which, just before the bass sings that line, have been caricatured in brief reprise. The sung line says, in effect, that we must now cast aside the struggles personified in the symphony so far and turn to more joyful considerations. I can't think what else you might be seeing in it. Beethoven is my all-time numero uno hero, but the opening to that finale is, to me, a pretty scruffy, untidy and ill-judged affair. I still love the whole work though.////

Typical Steve. He just has to outdo you--he's a skeptic and an atheist after all. If you've done everything once, then by god, Steve's done it twice and then a third time just in case you get any wise ideas about catching up.