Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, op. 55 “Eroica” Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, op. 55 “Eroica”

He does not seem to have been a particularly winning character, as many sources attest. Ludwig van Beethoven is often described as unrestrained and solitary. One of the contradictions of his life is that he nevertheless managed to build up a network of admirers and supporters. Beethoven’s first journey to Vienna was financed by Count Waldstein; Waldstein’s aunt had a son-in-law in Prince Lichnowsky, who became the young composer’s most generous patron. In gratitude, Beethoven dedicated to him the Pathétique Sonata and the Second Symphony. Prince Maximilian Lobkowitz, himself a violinist, also extended his financial protection to the musical genius – even to the point of his own ruin. Lobkowitz maintained his own orchestra, which gave the first performance of the “Eroica” at a private concert on 9 June 1804. In addition to the Third Symphony, Beethoven dedicated to Lobkowitz his Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6 as well as the Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello.

Anecdotes about the genesis of the “Eroica” began to circulate early on, spread by Beethoven’s pupils and one of his doctors. Their truthfulness may be doubted. The most enduring – and probably most credible – story holds that Beethoven intended to dedicate the new symphony to Napoleon, whom he admired as the embodiment of the ideals of the French Revolution. But when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor, Beethoven is said to have cried out in anger: “Now he too will trample all human rights underfoot, indulging only his ambition; he will now place himself above all others, and become a tyrant!” He then reportedly scratched out the original dedication. What is certain is that Beethoven judged Napoleon throughout his life with a mixture of admiration and scepticism: the revolutionary ideals and the Corsican’s successes attracted him, while Napoleon’s self-aggrandisement repelled him. Quite apart from the question of dedication, the genesis of the “Eroica” is not easy to reconstruct. Some early sketches date back to the autumn of 1802; perhaps they were meant merely to capture loose ideas, without any specific reference to a symphony. Beethoven made his final changes, additions, and revisions in early 1804.

Compared with the two preceding symphonies, the “Eroica” represents a clear development of the genre – in style, structure, and instrumentation. Above all, Beethoven succeeds in shaping a large-scale work from extremely limited material – a general hallmark of his oeuvre. The first movement, for example, rests on a single, simple musical idea: two chord strokes that introduce the cantabile main theme. While in the “Marcia funebre”, Beethoven draws on several motifs from funeral marches of the French Republic, in the Scherzo he writes a movement of epic dimensions – something unprecedented at the time. The final movement is based on the concise theme of an early contredanse, which Beethoven had already used, with earworm insistence, in his ballet Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus). From it grows a finale of more than 400 measures, with variations and fugal elements.

A telling indication of the effect the work had on Beethoven’s contemporaries is a review of a concert on 3 January 1807, printed in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung: “The first movement is imposing and full of power and sublimity; the development faithful and comprehensible … – The funeral march is new, and bears the character of noble melancholy. … – The Scherzo minuet is a piece full of lively, restless motion … – The finale has a certain worth, which I am far from denying; but it can scarcely escape the charge of great bizarreness.”