Beethoven's 5th: familiarity breeds contempt

Beethoven's masterful use of the four-note theme in his Fifth Symphony is, of course, one of the great examples of skillful composition in history. What is sad is that the theme has been used and overused and overused again, even in popular music, that we have come to look on it as commonplace, and thus, I fear, have tended to downgrade the value of the music in our minds.