Symphony No. 3 in F-flat Major, op. 55, "Eroica"
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
If the Third Symphony excites attention because of its significance in the world of the early 19th century and its role in the life of the composer, it is of supreme importance purely as a musical work. As with Wagner's Tristan and Stravinsky's Sacre du printemps, the Eroica Symphony marks one of those extraordinary "quantum leaps' which have periodically transformed the whole art of music. With this work Beethoven becomes entirely his own man: the echoes of Haydn and Mozart are behind him.
"In this symphony Beethoven had Buonaparte in mind, but as he was when he was First Consul. Beethoven esteemed him greatly at the time and likened him to the greatest Roman consuls. I as well as several of his more intimate friends saw a copy of the score lying upon his table with the word "Buonaparte" at the extreme top of the title page, and at the extreme bottom "Luigi van Beethoven.' but not another word. Whether and with what the space between was to be filled out. I do not know. I was the first to bring him the intelligence that Buonaparte had proclaimed himself emperor, whereupon he flew into a rage and cried out: "Is he then, too. nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he too, will trample on all the rights of man and indulge only his ambition. He will exalt himself above all others, become a tyrant!' Beethoven went to the table, took hold of the title page by the top, tore it in two, and threw it on the floor. The first page was rewritten and only then did the symphony receive the title Sinfonia Eroica."
This celebrated account of the ripping up of the title page of the Third Symphony, related by Beethoven's pupil Ferdinand Ries, is probably accurate, and has been enshrined in the minds of all lovers of Beethoven's music. The facts of Beethoven's preoccupation with Napoleon Bonaparte are, however, not so simple. Maynard Solomon, in his landmark studies of Beethoven (1977) traces the astonishing zigzag course of Beethoven's infatuation with Napoleon. (Not too strong a word, infatuation is seen in the reactions of mans other German and Austrian contemporaries of Beethoven, among them Goethe Schiller, Kant, Hegel, Heine... In England there was Wordsworth, Coleridge, the even younger Shelley, and in America the much older Jefferson. All were fascinated by this long-awaited, inevitable outcome of the Enlightenment, the "new man." In Beethoven's ambivalent reactions to Napoleon can be seen the results of the curdling of the dream of the Enlightenment in the gradual "absolute corruption" of "absolute power."
Merely residing in Vienna might have spurred Beethoven's admiration for Napoleon: the Austrian empire was a highly efficient police state. and a most persistent opponent of Bonapartism. Yet a curious ambivalence in Beethoven can be charted as early as 1796-97 in the composition of patriotic, anti-Napoleonic songs. In 1802 (before beginning the Eroica Symphony) Beethoven angrily rejected a suggestion that he compose a sonata in tribute to Napoleon, sneering at the French for the concordat with the Vatican. There may have been a somewhat careerist element in Beethoven's warmer attitude toward Napoleon at the time of the Third Symphony. He had become disillusioned in dealing with the fickle Viennese public, muttering rather loudly that perhaps he might move to Paris. where he thought he might be better appreciated. A symphony dedicated to the head of state could, after all, be a useful step in seeking an entree to Parisian musical favor. But with the fading of Beethoven's quite fanciful notions about Paris came a fading of his Bonapartist sympathies. The news of Napoleon's imperial ambitions was a resounding jolt to these sympathies (as it was to almost all of those idealistic admirers), resulting in the scene described by Ries. Nevertheless, as late as 1809 (with Vienna under siege from the French!), Beethoven became friendly with a member of the emperor's Council of State, who noted the composer's preoccupation with "the greatness of Napoleon. There were other oddities: flirtation with not one but two of the Bonaparte brothers with a possible court appointment in prospect, (Napoleon having installed members of his family at the head of various European puppet-states.) Later in 1809, during the French occupation of Vienna, the composer conducted a performance of the Eroica, and even pondered the idea of dedicating the C Major Mass to Napoleon! (Consistency was never Beethoven's strong suit.) After that the recorded comments regarding Napoleon become uniformly sour, as in the trenchant comment on learning of the emperor's death in 1821: "I have already composed the proper music for that catastrophe"!
The Eroica Symphony received its first public performance on 7 April, 1805 - a newspaper advertisement had listed it as a "Symphony in D# Major"! The very scale of the work is amazing: fully twice the duration of most Haydn symphonies, calling for an expanded orchestra, bringing new character to the traditional four-movement components of the classical symphony.
The first movement hurtles us into this new world with two karate-chop chords, immediately followed by the principal theme in the cellos, for a moment veering off into what might be called "clouded harmony," rushing forward into a full blaze of light with the entire orchestra pouring out the melody. Surprisingly soon we are drawn into the second subject, a five-fold string of elements united around the dominant key, varied in character: 1.) a tune made up of three notes "frisbied" around the winds and violins; 2.) a suave tune moving in contrary motion up and down in the strings; 3.) a galloping, rhythmically agitated element; 4.) a melody in the winds in repeated chords, echoed in the strings; 5.) another rhythmically pointed section, with driving accented patterns which lead to grating, dissonant final chords which round out the exposition.
The development is without precedent in its single-minded forcefulness, perhaps the most thorough and unrelenting in all the Beethoven symphonies, with accented, grinding chords culminating in a climax of violent dissonance. The obsessive fury of this passage is to be seen in Beethoven's manuscript, where the composer painstakingly writes out the direction sforzando throughout the score from top to bottom no fewer than 364 times! This outburst suddenly gives way to a completely "new" episode: a gentle, lyrical passage in c minor, for all the world springing out of the blue. (A close examination of the printed page will reveal that this "new' tune is actually a subtly disguised paraphrase of the opening principal subject!) This vast, sweeping transformation of the principal elements leads us gradually home to Eb major at a moment of high drama: against a buzzing, soft tremolo in the violins a horn timidly' "sticks a toe in the water," so to speak, intoning the main melody in a dissonant whisper, only to be pounced upon by the entire orchestra, setting off with a bang the recapitulation, the opening tune back in the cellos. The big exposition is reborn in a big recapitulation - only to spur the composer to roll ever onward into a very big coda, A little-noticed striding figure (heard early in the movement) returns to propel the music forward in ever-grander gestures, interrupted only by an unexpected reappearance of element 2 of the second subject, the music surging on to conclude with another pair of karate-chop chords, forming symmetry with the opening of the movement.
If the grandeur and sheer scale of the first movement were not enough to put one in awe of this symphony, the slow movement makes an unforgettable impression. Its shape is clear: a funeral march opening (an ABA structure), which recurs two more times, enclosing a pair of contrasting episodes. The ceremonial character of the music is vividly underscored by a muffled "drum-roll" figure in the basses, with the melody alternating between violins (playing in the dark lower register) and the plangent sound of solo oboe.
The first episode (similar to that in another famous funeral march - that of Chopin's B-flat minor piano sonata, probably inspired by Beethoven's example) shifts from minor to major, with sustained, arching melodic lines in the winds against lapping triplets in the strings. After a brief return of the funeral march, a second episode turns the march melody upside down in an extended fugal section which creates an even darker, more grief-stricken mood which is pushed to the extreme in an outburst of militant brass and pounding triplets in the strings. This gradually subsides, the triplets becoming a murmuring background with the return of the march melody over a weary, limping bass-line. The movement concludes in a vivid portrayal of sobbing, halting sorrow. (It is worth noting that this is certainly the precursor of the funeral march movements in the symphonies of Gustav Mahier.)
The scherzo. while not the first in a symphony (Beethoven's Second claims that distinction), is the first big scherzo, in the sense of its psychological impact as well as the sheer noise it makes. The initial noise is a rustling whisper, soon giving way to the hammer-blows which makes this the fore-runner not only of the scherzi from the 5th and 9th symphonies, but those of Schubert, Bruckner and even Shostakovich. In the trio Beethoven adds a third horn to the usual pair found in the classical orchestra, permitting full triads (as he did again in the celebrated "Abscheulicher!" aria in Fidelio. which was hatching about the same time as the Eroica. The echoes of the traditional hunting horns heard in this trio became a link to the "Romantic" horn writing so characteristic of the scherzi in Bruckner's symphonies
The finale of the symphony is the first example in Beethoven of an attempt to shift some of the weight from the first movement to the last, following the example of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. In this case the finale is an elaborate set of variations on a theme which Beethoven seems to have been unable to get out of his head: a tune already used in a set of orchestral dances, in the Prometheus ballet music, and in a piano work nicknamed (after the fact) "Eroica" Variations.
After a cascading splash of sound in the strings and some majestic chords, the theme is first heard in the pizzicato strings, curiously jaunty and cheeky, with mischievous silences and sudden thumps from the entire orchestra. The first three variations come as a group: Var. I with a tapping, repeated rhythmic figure which will reappear as the famous opening motif in the 5th Svmphony: Var. 2 bringing triplets into play; Var 3 featuring oboe and clarinet with the tune, against a rapid flowing figure in the violins. Then follows the first of two fugal episodes (here in C minor), with the tapping, repeated figure given prominence. The variation procedure resumes with No 4, with a cheerful turn given the solo flute. Var. 5 follows in a tense G minor, with a striding repetition of the opening of the theme, and an insistent dotted rhythm. Shifting to a sunny C major, there follows what starts out as a variation, only to glide back to the home key for a second fugal episode. this time inverting the theme against a rustling counter-melody in the
violins. Driving onward with increasing tension and agitation, the mood is sharply broken by Var. 6. shifting to a slower tempo (andante). with a plaintive wind version of the theme answered by hymn-like strings in full resonance. The scherzando triplets from the latter part of this variation are carried over in the final Var. 7, hammered out in a pre-echo of heavy 1950's rock-n-roll against the theme, now belted out in lower strings, winds and horn. Suddenly the coda steals in, maintaining a then slower tempo, at first quiet and subdued, swelling to a peak of full sonority before falling away again. The "cascading" figure from the start of the movement reappears and hurtles forward in a burst of furious energy, concluding the symphony with hammer-blow chords, the final pair being a clear echo of the opening notes of this Napoleonic epic of a symphony.
