I. Allegro con brio
II. Marcia funebre: Adagio assai
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace; Trio
IV. Finale: Allegro molto
It is interesting to note the difference in the expression of heroism
between this symphony and Strauss’s _Heldenleben_. To be sure, Beethoven
had Bonaparte at first in mind, while in _Heldenleben_ the hero
is—Richard Strauss, defying his enemies, rejoicing vaingloriously in his
immortality as a composer. It is not necessary to accept the theories of
Beethoven’s commentators. The excellent Nietzel finds that, in the
second theme of the first movement, “the hero, having for the first time
exerted his force, turns about to look at the path he has trod.” Wagner
sees Man, not merely a triumphant soldier, the hero. Schindler believes
the symphony to be the celebration of the French Revolution. And so on
and so on. It is enough that the structure and the spirit of the
symphony are heroic, that there is the grand gesture, that even in the
Funeral March there is no whine of pessimism, no luxury of woe. It is a
heroic lamentation over heroes slain in defence of freedom, a
lamentation in which there is exultation, even in grief.
* * *
At Nussdorf in the summer of 1817, Beethoven, who had then composed
eight symphonies, and the poet Christian Kuffner were having a fish
dinner at the Tavern Zur Rose. Kuffner asked him which of his symphonies
was his favorite.
“Eh! Eh!” said Beethoven. “The _Eroica_.”
“I should have guessed the C minor,” said Kuffner.
“No, the _Eroica_.”
Anton Schindler wrote in his life of Beethoven:
“First in the fall of 1802 was his [Beethoven’s] mental condition so
much bettered that he could take hold afresh of his long-formulated
plan and make some progress: to pay homage with a great instrumental
work to the hero of the time, Napoleon. Yet not until 1803 did he set
himself seriously to this gigantic work, which we now know under the
title of _Sinfonia Eroica_: on account of many interruptions it was
not finished until the following year.... The first idea of this
symphony is said to have come from General Bernadotte, who was then
French Ambassador at Vienna and highly treasured Beethoven. I heard
this from many friends of Beethoven. Count Moritz Lichnowsky, who was
often with Beethoven in the company of Bernadotte, ... told me the
same story.”[7] Schindler also wrote, with reference to the year 1823:
“The correspondence of the King of Sweden led Beethoven’s memory back
to the time when the King, then General Bernadotte, Ambassador of the
French Republic, was at Vienna, and Beethoven had a lively
recollection of the fact that Bernadotte indeed first awakened in him
the idea of the _Sinfonia Eroica_.”
These statements are direct. Unfortunately, Schindler, in the third
edition of his book, mentioned Beethoven as a visitor at the house of
Bernadotte in 1798, repeated the statement that Bernadotte inspired the
idea of the symphony, and added: “Not long afterward the idea blossomed
into a deed”; he also laid stress on the fact that Beethoven was a
stanch republican and cited, in support of his admiration of Napoleon,
passages from Beethoven’s own copy of Schleiermacher’s translation of
Plato.
Thayer admits that the thought of Napoleon may have influenced the form
and the contents of the symphony; that the composer may have based a
system of politics on Plato; “but,” he adds, “Bernadotte had been long
absent from Vienna before the Consular form of government was adopted at
Paris, and before Schleiermacher’s Plato was published in Berlin.”
The symphony was composed in 1803-04. The story is that the title page
of the manuscript bore the word “Buonaparte,” and at the bottom of the
page “Luigi van Beethoven”; and “not a word more,” said Ries, who saw
the manuscript. “I was the first,” also said Ries, “to bring him the
news that Bonaparte had had himself declared emperor, whereat he broke
out angrily: ‘Then he’s nothing but an ordinary man. Now he’ll trample
on all the rights of men to serve his own ambition; he will put himself
higher than all others and turn out a tyrant!’” There is also the story
that when the death of Napoleon was announced, Beethoven exclaimed: “Did
I not foresee the catastrophe when I wrote the Funeral March in the
_Eroica_?” Vincent d’Indy argues against Schindler’s theory that
Beethoven wished to celebrate the French Revolution _en bloc_. “_C’était
l’homme de Brumaire_” that Beethoven honored by his dedication. The
autograph score, sold at auction in Vienna in 1827 for three florins,
ten kreutzers, shows the erasure of two words under “_Sinfonia grande_”
on the title page: one is plainly “Bonaparte”; under his own name,
Beethoven wrote, in large characters, “Written on Bonaparte.” Paul
Bekker, arguing that the _Eroica_ is not the portrait of any one hero,
but that the symphony represents his concept of human heroism, believes
that the first movement is the only one of direct connection with
Napoleon: “The hero’s deeds have resulted in victory, the restless will
has achieved fulfilment.”[8]
There can be nothing in the statements that have come down from Czerny,
Dr. Bartolini, and others: the first _Allegro_ describes a sea fight;
the Funeral March is in memory of Nelson or General Abercrombie, etc.
There can be no doubt that Napoleon, the young conqueror, the Consul,
the enemy of kings, worked a spell over Beethoven, as over Berlioz,
Hazlitt, Victor Hugo; for, according to W. E. Henley’s paradox,
although, as despot, Napoleon had “no love for new ideas and no
tolerance for intellectual independence,” yet he was “the great First
Cause of Romanticism.”
The first performance of the symphony was at a private concert at Prince
Lobkowitz’s in December, 1804. The composer conducted, and in the second
half of the first _Allegro_ he brought the orchestra to grief, so that a
fresh start was made. The first performance in public was at a concert
given by Clement at the Theater an der Wien, April 7, 1805. The symphony
was announced as “A new grand Symphony in D sharp by Herr Ludwig van
Beethoven, dedicated to his Excellence Prince von Lobkowitz.” Beethoven
conducted. Czerny remembered that someone shouted from the gallery: “I’d
give another kreutzer if they would stop.” Beethoven’s friends declared
the work a masterpiece. Some said it would gain if it were shortened, if
there were more “light, clearness, and unity.” Others found it a mixture
of the good, the grotesque, the tiresome.
The symphony was published in October, 1806. The title in Italian stated
that it was to celebrate the memory of a great man. And there was this
note: “Since this symphony is longer than an ordinary symphony, it
should be performed at the beginning rather than at the end of a
concert, either after an overture or an aria, or after a concerto. If it
be performed too late, there is the danger that it will not produce on
the audience, whose attention will be already wearied by preceding
pieces, the effect which the composer purposed in his own mind to
attain.”
The theme of the first movement is note for note the same as that of the
first measures of the Intrade written by Mozart in 1768, at Vienna, for
his one-act operetta, _Bastien et Bastienne_, performed that year in a
Viennese garden house. Beethoven’s theme is finished by the violins and
developed at length. There is a subsidiary theme, which begins with a
series of detached phrases distributed among wood-wind instruments and
then the violins. The second theme, of a plaintive character, is given
out alternately by wood-wind and strings. The development is most
elaborate, full of striking contrasts, rich in new ideas. The passage in
which the horn enters with the first two measures of the first theme in
the tonic chord of the key, while the violins keep up a tremolo on A
flat and B flat, has given rise to many anecdotes and provoked fierce
discussion. The _coda_ is of unusual length.
The Funeral March, _Adagio assai_, C minor, 2-4, begins, _pianissimo e
sotto voce_, with the theme in the first violins, accompanied by simple
chords in the other strings. The theme is repeated by the oboe,
accompanied by wood-wind instruments and strings; the strings give the
second portion of the theme. A development by full orchestra follows.
The second theme is in C major. Phrases are given out by various
wood-wind instruments in alternation, accompanied by triplet _arpeggios_
in the strings. This theme, too, is developed; and there is a return to
the first theme in C minor in the strings. There is fugal development at
length of a figure that is not closely connected with either of the two
themes. The first theme reappears for a moment, but strings and brass
enter _fortissimo_ in A flat major. This episode is followed by another;
and at last the first theme returns in fragmentary form in the first
violins, accompanied by a _pizzicato_ bass and chords in oboes and
horns.
M. d’Indy,[9] discussing the patriotism of Beethoven as shown in his
music, calls attention to the _militarisme_, the adaptation of a warlike
rhythm to melody, that characterizes this march.
_Scherzo_: _allegro vivace_, E flat major, 3-4. Strings are _pianissimo_
and _staccato_, and oboe and first violins play a gay theme which Marx
says is taken from an old Austrian folk song. This melody is the basic
material of the _scherzo_. The trio in E flat major includes hunting
calls by the horns, which are interrupted by passages in wood-wind
instruments or strings.
_Finale_: _allegro molto_, E flat major, 2-4. A theme, or, rather, a
double theme, with variations. Beethoven was fond of this theme, for he
had used it in the _finale_ of his ballet, _Die Geschöpfe des
Prometheus_, in the Variations for pianoforte, Op. 35, and in a country
dance. After a few measures of introduction, the bass to the melody
which is to come is given out, as though it were an independent theme.
The first two variations in the strings are contrapuntal. In the third
the tuneful second theme is in the wood-wind against runs in the first
violins. The fourth is a long fugal development of the first theme
against a counter subject found in the first variation. Variations in G
minor follow, and the second theme is heard in C major. There is a new
fugal development of the inverted first theme. The tempo changes to
_poco andante_, wood-wind instruments play an expressive version of the
second theme, which is developed to a _coda_ for full orchestra, and the
symphony ends with a joyful glorification of the theme.
First performances: London, 1814. Paris (at a rehearsal in 1815
everybody laughed after the first and second movement; this happened at
another attempt some years later), Conservatory Orchestra, 1828. St.
Petersburg, 1834. Rome, 1860. Madrid, 1878.