Theme to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

Those four opening notes--short, short, short, long--might be the most famous phrase in all of classical music. Beethoven worked on this symphony for several years in the middle of his life, while wrestling with his growing deafness, and it premiered in Vienna in December 1808. He's said to have described the opening as “fate knocking at the door,” though historians aren't sure he ever actually said that. During World War II, Allied radio broadcasts used those same four notes as a victory signal, since in Morse code, short-short-short-long spells the letter V. Not bad for four notes.