Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, op. 55, by Ludwig van Beethoven, known as Eroica, is a work considered by many to be the dawn of musical romanticism, since it breaks several schemes of the traditional classical symphony. It was initially dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte. Ludwig Van Beethoven is considered as one of the most influential composers in history and the Eroica as one of the most important compositions ever written.
As physicist Albert Einstein once said – who liked to play melodies on the violin – “Before Beethoven music was written for the immediate: with Beethoven, you start writing music for eternity.”
What is the history of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3?
This symphony is one of Beethoven’s most famous works, which he originally intended to dedicate to Napoleon Bonaparte (he called it Bonaparte). The idea of composing a symphony in honor of Europe’s “liberator” was suggested by Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, French ambassador to Vienna in 1798, or by Rodolphe Kreutzer, violinist to whom Beethoven dedicated a sonata. Bonaparte was, with the difference of only one year, an exact contemporary of the musician, who not only felt a lively admiration for his hero, but more or less consciously, had established a kind of parallelism between their respective destinies.
Beethoven admired the ideals of the French Revolution embodied in the figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, but when he emulated himself emperor in May 1804, Beethoven was so upset that he erased Bonaparte’s name from the title page with such force that he broke his quill and left a torn hole in the paper. He said: “Now alone… he will obey his ambition, rise higher than the others, become a tyrant!”
To be a young composer in the capital of the Austrian Empire, to have the backing of the city’s aristocracy, then composing a symphony with the name of the arch enemy of Austria and the establishment, was an act of bravery! No other composer dared to do such thing!
Sometime later, when the work was published in 1806, Beethoven gave it the title of “Eroica symphony – compost per festeggiare il sovvenire d’ un grand’ uomo” (“Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man”). This great man was an ideal, a non-existent hero, but maybe it was the spirit of heroism itself that interested Beethoven. It has also been said that Beethoven was referring to the memory of Napoleon’s nature, which was once dignified.
Composing, premiere and impact of the Eroica Symphony
Beethoven began composing his Third Symphony around 1802 during his stay in Heiligenstadt and ended it between the spring of 1803 and May 1804. The first private audition took place in May or June of that same year at the home of Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz, to whom it was finally dedicated. The first public performance was given at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on April 7, 1805, with the composer as conductor.
The Third Symphony was Beethoven’s first to be performed in Paris by the Conservatory Concert Society, in March 1828.
A crucial moment in Beethoven’s life and the evolution of Western music was the composition of his Third symphony (the Eroica). Until that time, the musical language of his first and second symphonies did not leave the world of sounds of Mozart and Haydn substantially. But from the opening notes of Eroica, we enter an entirely different world.
This Symphony was the breakthrough in Beethoven’s compositional approach, which was also known as ‘new path’. Formerly, Beethoven was a classical composer – a bit in the shadows of Haydn and Mozart.
The play breaks the molds of the classical symphony in almost every way. For example, no symphonic work by Haydn or Mozart lasts a minimum of 45 minutes like this Beethoven piece lasts.
|Related: Was Beethoven Classical or Romantic era composer?
What is the deep crisis behind Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3?
The “Eroica” symphony stems from a profound crisis of Beethoven, depressed by his health problems and his worsening deafness, which leads him to question his future in music and even weigh suicide. In 1802 he retires to the quiet village of Heiligenstadt, near Vienna, with his mind taken by the most dark thoughts. But he emerges from the crisis with the will to move forward and make a great turn to his art.
|Related: Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament
The new symphony breaks the traditions of all kinds. Not only it plays twice as long as his first compositions (~45 min.), but it also carries the traits of the new romantic spirit and is much more complicated than his works before. Criticism in the beginning crossed it out as “heavy, endless and washed away.”
Soon it will be greeted as an absolute triumph!
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