For Today's Symphonic Friday update I thought I'd go with some historical context. Or at least attempt it.

204 years ago today the Napoleonic code (The French Civil Code) established under Napoleon Bonaparte entered into force and took complete effect.

It was around this period as well, starting late 1803 to early 1804 that Ludwig van Beethoven completed work on his Third Symphony "Eroica" in E-flat Major, op.55 . The first public performance of the work was given in Vienna at the Theatre an der Wien on April 7, 1805 (16 days, 203 years ago!)

Part One


The connections between this Symphony and Bonaparte are historically inseparable. Given the "heroic" context of the name supplied by Beethoven, Eroica, one naturally assumes connections with the hero being that of Napoleon.

Beethoven was at the time he began composing the landmark work, fond of Napoleon and his apparent devotion to the ideas of the French Revolution, within the motto itself of Liberty, Equality and fraternity (brotherhood).

He was also in the midst of a personal vendetta, displeased with his compositional quality up to that point in his life. In reference to this he had just completed his 15th piano sonata in D major and felt it lacked a "compelling figure," though the Op.28 is one of my personal favorites. Physically, Beethoven was on the beginning of a downward spiral as his hearing was going nowhere good quickly. None of these dissonances in his life worked to calm his nerves.

Beethoven retreated to a tiny town outside of Vienna known as Heiligenstadt where here he witnessed a tremendous increase in his compositional productivity. However the reasons for pursuing a retreat in the country never arrived, that was the goal of attempting to stall his deteriorating hearing condition. His anguish continued even further and Beethoven was flirting with the idea of his own mortality. Compelled from this consequence he began to write what was at the time his will and testament, though nobody in his lifetime publically became aware of it. The Heiligenstadt Testament as it became known divulges into the details of his ailing illness and the constant pain and turmoil resulting from this. One reading this document with its fraught and painful script, immediately feels the ultimate despondency that had consumed Beethoven. It is perhaps his most anguished creation not written as music.

It is through what was considered an exorcism of Beethoven's emotional and physical fears brought upon from releasing his feelings in the above testament, Beethoven embarked on his most creative and ambitious segment of his life. The Eroica started it all. For many this is recognized as his "Heroic" stage in his life. It is with this symphony alone that the ideals Beethoven possessed during this stage clearly reveals themselves.

Referring back to Napoleon now it was within Beethoven's own reasoning that the Symphony was to be labeled the "Bonaparte" Symphony as stated earlier, to Bonaparte's apparent connections with the ideals of the French revolution to which Beethoven adherently agreed with. Beethoven always possessed an ambitious mind towards feelings in an almost humanist quality, pursuing elements related to human knowledge and experience.

Part Two


However, once Beethoven discovered that Napoleon had gone far enough as to declare himself Emperor of the French in May of 1804, Beethoven was furious. So much in fact he rushed to the corner where the recently finished manuscript of the symphony lay, scratched out the dedication to Bonaparte with such ferocity the page was destroyed and was forced to be rewritten.

Fired over the discovery of the imperiously short noble, Beethoven spoke violently. "So he is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, he will tread under foot all the rights of man, indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men, become a tyrant!"

This is how the Symphony was to be named the "Eroica" symphony. To be more precise in its origin, Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uomo ("heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man").

The Eroica is so grand for many different reasons, to each which have their own deep explanations. The work is considered the birth of Romanticism in music and quite possibly the finest achievement in symphonic writing, at least until Beethoven's own ninth symphony arrived twenty years later. The Eroica subset the ideal from the radical, a device that created an impression of representing a psychological journey in music writing. This added another dimension to music in society and that appreciation has never faded.

Music was suddenly no longer a means of performance and leisure. It cold now initiate ideas that shifted beliefs and throw away present-day conventions. For a society at the time still complacent with the earlier Classical procedures of Haydn and Mozart, to have the Eroica manifest everything changing in the world so suddenly came as nothing but a shock in the highest order.

The Symphony is also throughly enjoyable and sparked a higher level of intellectual achievement in all of Beethoven's work. He suddenly sought to be more profound, the emotion and drama arising from the funeral march of the second movement are unprecedented and ideally portray Beethoven's newly adopted style.

About the performance videos:
Herbert von Karajan conducts the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (I believe, it doesn't really clarify the orchestra performing)