Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major (Sinfonia Eroica), Op. 55
Premiere: Vienna, April 7, 1805
2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, strings
***
Allegro con brio
Marcia funebre: Adagio assai
Scherzo: Allegro vivace
Finale: Allegro molto
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
Beethoven's Eroica Symphony is such a familiar classic today that it is sometimes difficult to feel how revolutionary it is. Following the premiere in Vienna in 1805, one reviewer wrote that, although he was an admirer of Beethoven and could see that the work came from an "energetic and talented mind," it nonetheless "very often seems to get lost in its own haphazard disorder." He found it "garish and bizarre in too many places, which disturbs the clarity of layout in the extreme and almost destroys the unity of the whole."
Much of the material in the symphony is indeed unusual and unprecedented. The famous opening theme in the cellos is unsettling as it takes an unexpected turn, and, on one occasion when Beethoven was conducting, the syncopated rhythms in the first movement so confused the orchestra that he was obliged to start the movement over again. At the end of the unusually extensive development section, just before the return of the opening material, the horn plays the theme before the orchestra has resolved to the expected harmony. Like many listeners, Beethoven's student, Ferdinand Ries, found this passage confusing and commented that the horn player had miscounted, at which the furious Beethoven nearly gave him a box on the ears. That the second movement was in the character of a funeral march was also new and shocking to some listeners.
Even the length of this symphony, approximately twice as long as a typical symphony of the time, upset many in the audience: "The inordinate length of this longest and perhaps most difficult of all symphonies wearies even the cognoscenti, and it is unendurable to the mere music lover," complained one reviewer. A listener in the gallery was heard to remark, "I'll give another kreutzer if the thing will only stop." But it was only a matter of several years and a few rehearings before listeners and critics adjusted their expectations for this radically new symphony and acknowledged it as the masterpiece that it is.
According to the popular story, the symphony originally bore the title "Bonaparte" as an homage to the ruler whom Beethoven considered a great democrat. But Ries tells us that, when he brought the news that Napoleon was to make himself emperor, Beethoven flew into a rage and tore Napoleon's name from the title page, replacing it with the title Sinfonia eroica, composta per festaggiare il sovvenire d'un grand' uomo' ("Heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man"). However, Beethoven's feelings may have remained more ambivalent than the story suggests, and the new title may have been added later. When he offered the completed work to his publisher, he wrote that the title was really "Bonaparte." Several years later, in 1809, a member of Napoleon's Council of State visited Beethoven and came away with the impression that the composer was very much taken with Napoleon, admiring not only his greatness but also his rise from obscurity, despite the fact that the composer's own country was then at war with Napoleon.
The memorable main theme of the last movement, the subject of variations, is borrowed from the finale to his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus. It was a tune that he obviously liked and that inspired his imagination, for he used it also in a set of contredanses and returned to it as the subject of a major set of variations for piano. However, one wonders whether using the "Prometheus" tune once more in the finale of the Eroica may have been meant to associate Napoleon, the original hero of the symphony, with the titan Prometheus, the creator of mankind.
Boston Baroque Performances
Symphony No. 3 in Eb, Op. 55
May 5 & 6, 2006
NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA
Martin Pearlman, conductor
May 4 & 5, 2001
NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA
Martin Pearlman, conductor