The Maggiore itself demands a somewhat animated tempo.
In the C minor Symphony, Beethoven intended that only a very few variations should be made in the time; yet these few are in the highest degree important and interesting, and they refer principally to the first movement.
The opening of this movement (that is to say, the first five bars with the two pauses) requires to be played in something like this tempo,
= 126, an andante con moto.[137] Thus the mystical character of the movement is in an infinite degree more clearly manifested than by a rapid expression of this phrase, so full of deep meaning. Beethoven expressed himself in something like vehement animation, when describing to me his idea:—"It is thus that Fate knocks at the door." At the sixth bar, where the first violin is introduced, the allegro con brio,
= 108, commences; and this time is continued until this passage[138]—
where, according to Beethoven's idea, Fate again knocks at the door—only more slowly. At the passage for the first violin, in the succeeding bar, the allegro is again taken up.
In the second part of this movement the retardation of the quick time occurs twice: first at the phrase succeeding the pause on the major triad of E flat.[139]