The lowest frequency Raman active (molecular) vibrations of known fullerenes are quadrupolar in nature (QP modes). They can be simply rationalized in terms of the 5-fold degenerate D-g oscillation of an isotropic spherical shell. Symmetry distortion away fi-om spherical leads to lifting of the degeneracy and correspondingly up to five vibrational features may be resolved in the QP-mode regions of the Raman spectra of high fullerenes. The energy splitting is a measure of fullerene cage topology.