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No work appeared more frequently in Furtwängler’s concert programmes than Beethoven’s Fifth. Much of the musical action in the Fifth Symphony, wrote Furtwängler, lies in the metamorphosis of four-bar periods into two-bar periods, and two-bar periods into single bars. He likened the rhythmic symmetry and harmonic power of Beethoven’s writing to a region through which complex but clearly defined lines of communication can be seen running in every direction. For Furtwängler the interpreter, the symphony offered the thrill of high drama played out against a background of settled correspondences. For Furtwängler the thinker, it was a paradigm of existence itself: an essentially orderly universe in which violent, disruptive and seemingly unpredictable events take place. A clear case of music being imbued with meaning.