"So in Beethoven’s mind there was presumably some dramatic scenario behind the Fifth Symphony, but he decided that, like most of his works, this one did not need to be nailed to a stated narrative. For those equipped to understand it, the gist would be clear enough in the notes. That story would be as direct as the rest of the symphony: a movement from darkness to light, from C minor to C major, from the battering of fate to joyous triumph. The compaction of material flows from the first gesture, that unforgettable explosion of three Gs and an E-flat. Once again, for Beethoven the opening idea, das Thema, is the embryo of a work. Here he boils down das Thema to just four notes that still function like a Thema: they are the symphony in essence. In the symphony’s first moment, in that percussive da-da-da-dum, we hear the primal rhythmic figure that will dominate the first movement and persist as motif and rhythmic scaffolding to the end. We sense the force-of-nature energy of the movement. We hear the bluntness of effect, the simplest harmonies proclaimed as if discovered for the first time. We hear the muscular quality that will mark the orchestral sound. We are misled by the key; it seems to be E-flat major but is actually C minor; that ambiguity creates tension. The propulsive effect of the primal “&-2-& 1” rhythmic tattoo comes from its beginning on a void, a charged rest on the beginning of the 2/4 measure, then three eighth notes driving into the next measure, in which a new start of the figure is usually overlapped to drive forward again. Call the effect of this tattoo dominating the movement a monorhythm."