# Beethoven's Eroica



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

I don't post here much but I wanted to post here today.

I was walking to work today, and for some reason I wondered 'where did the Eroica Symphony come from?' 

It seemed, in the evolution of music, to come from nowhere. We had Mozart and Haydn symphonies preceeding this, which are of course amazing in their own right; but they where short, commisioned (mainly) and followed a pattern. Ok, Mozart's late symphonies where showing signs of something special and we'll never know how Mozart 's music would have gone had he lived longer. 

Then along comes Beethoven. His first two symphonies are very Haydnesque but then all of a sudden comes this monstrous piece called the 'Eroica'. Why? (I'm listening to it now and I'm getting very emotional). 

The opening to it so sublimely simple and the rest of the movement is built around this basic motif. 

Why was there this amazing evolutionary jump in music? Who really was Beethoven? What was so special about his genetic makeup that suddenly decided to progress music at such a fast rate?

Did the opening bars to the Eroica just pop into his head? Did contemporary composers kick themselves for not thinking of it? If they did would they have been able to sustain it for nearly twenty minutes? (the first movement)

But the thing is he didn't stop there. He pushes the boundaries further with the 5th the 7th and the 9th. But why? 

This just doesn't go for his symphonies but his piano sonatas, chamber music etc.

Was he just a complete one off? Something that we will never witness again in any generation?

Sorry to be so emotional. I am studying to be a scientist but music is one of my true loves and I do like to have a habit of asking why?

His music moves me to tears.


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

Beautifully written and so true.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I have often thought Beethoven began in the classical period, but then skipped over and beyond the romantic and modern periods entirely and went off in some parallel musical dimension where none can follow. Some people think we lionize or over-hype the man, but the more I learn of him, the more he becomes a heroic mythic figure.

Have you seen the film_ Eroica_? While not entirely historically accurate, it will move you to tears as well. The actor playing the role of Haydn is superb.

Perhaps Beethoven was not quite human - or maybe it is that his music is the essence of all it means to be human.


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## AmateurComposer (Sep 13, 2009)

beetzart said:


> But the thing is he didn't stop there. He pushes the boundaries further with the 5th the 7th and the 9th. But why?


You remind me of the following comment (I do not know who said it): "Beethoven wrote only four symphonies - the Third, the Fifth, the Seventh, and the Ninth."

I disagree. Great as these are, there is a lot of greatness in the remaining five.


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2010)

I tend to think it was a combination of his personal genius, a somewhat rebellious attitude, and the conditions in which he emerged.

Great leaps forward, in any area, usually occur around some kind of choke point. When the conditions, rules, resources, etc. that control a certain situation become limiting, then somewhere there is a breakthrough that suddenly allows greater freedom. Beethoven emerged at the end of what we now consider the classical period - a period that in many ways was a reaction to the embellishments and ornamentation of the baroque, that sought to explore the beauty of music through strict rules and forms. Perhaps his arrival on the scene was at a critical time where this methodology had reached the limits of its capabilities, and combined with his refusal to simply repeat what was already written, he began exploring practices that were not previously considered within the rules. Given a new avenue to explore, then, allowed for later people to move in a new direction - not because they had all spontaneously evolved the same thinking style as Beethoven, but rather a new way was opened, which had much space to be explored.


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## gmubandgeek (Jun 8, 2010)

I'm not the biggest fan of Beethoven's music, but I'm definitely in love with his life. Here was a man so dedicated to the liberty and equality of man that he scratched Napoleon's name off the symphony after he declared himself emperor of France (though later he revealed that Eroica was supposed to be Bonaparte). No doubt Beethoven's music has an immense amount of emotion, as he had the freedom to do so. Beethoven in my opinion is the composer of the people, not just the aristocrats. Too bad his 8th symphony doesn't enjoy as much praise as his 5th, 7th or 9th. Very emotional indeed!


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## gmubandgeek (Jun 8, 2010)

Weston said:


> I have often thought Beethoven began in the classical period, but then skipped over and beyond the romantic and modern periods entirely and went off in some parallel musical dimension where none can follow. Some people think we lionize or over-hype the man, but the more I learn of him, the more he becomes a heroic mythic figure.
> 
> Have you seen the film_ Eroica_? While not entirely historically accurate, it will move you to tears as well. The actor playing the role of Haydn is superb.
> 
> Perhaps Beethoven was not quite human - or maybe it is that his music is the essence of all it means to be human.


Now I have to see this movie. I'm interested to see how Haydn was portrayed.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

AmateurComposer said:


> You remind me of the following comment (I do not know who said it): "Beethoven wrote only four symphonies - the Third, the Fifth, the Seventh, and the Ninth."
> 
> I disagree. Great as these are, there is a lot of greatness in the remaining five.


You are correct. I shouldn't neglect his other five symphonies; they are masterpieces in their own right, of course. But they are not groundbreaking in my humble opinion.

Now, of course, because a piece of music is not groundbreaking does not negate its beauty or its place in history, not by a long shot. All I was mearly pointing out was the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th did something to the history of music. It was as if music was nicely evolving at a decent pace (moving to a more secular, freelance position) then all of a sudden, bang! The Eroica was born.

I often wonder, was Ludwig van just wandering through some beautiful countryside one sunny spring afternoon. His worries about his increasing deafness nulled by the beauty of the surrounding unspoilt enviroment; then all of a sudden the opening few bars of the Eroica came into his head. Of course we will never know and his secret (if he knew the answer) died with him.

What does interest me though is this: Was the Eroica the first politicaly motivated piece of music ever written? This was a time in European history where it was a crime to speak badly of the establishment in certain countries, although Beethoven was exempt from this in Austria.

Finally, can I say that I am not trying to minimise music's profoundness by asking questions such as 'why?'. Personally I have a habit of asking myself these questions, maybe vainly. It is almost akin to asking what the meaning of life is. Sometimes you have to just accept things as 'it is because it is'. We will never know the answer because Beethoven is now dead and can't tell us. People might say God created Beethoven and his music, and the proof is in the music itself. All Beethoven's music really proves is that a man called Beethoven existed. That is my atheistic view though.

I'll stop there, too much of a tangent.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

gmubandgeek said:


> Now I have to see this movie. I'm interested to see how Haydn was portrayed.


Haydn's appearance is brief but reverent -- if inaccurate. I understand he may not even have been at the premier of Beethoven's 3rd. Accurate or not, it is a wonderful moment for me and I felt the movie captured his gentleness, generosity, and dignity very well.


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## Earthling (May 21, 2010)

gmubandgeek said:


> Now I have to see this movie. I'm interested to see how Haydn was portrayed.


I just watched it a few hours ago (after reading about it in this thread) and was quite good-- an interesting hybrid of doco and biopic (BBC did something similar with Mozart, "interviewing" his family and friends. We need more of this.).

Its divided up into nine segments available on *this page*.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

I don't believe Haydn wrote any symphonies after Eroica was performed.
But it's history's great loss that Mozart died at 35. After all, Mozart would have been 47 when Beethoven wrote the Eroica.
I kind of imagine Mozart hearing it, and saying "Holy ****, I've got some serious competition here. _Jupiter's_ been well and truly trumped. Where's my manuscript paper?"
What kind of work might he have written then?

And yet, as a contemporary, Schubert's 8th & 9th stand up to Beethoven pretty well.

The early death of Schubert is music's greatest tragedy. Nobody matched Schubert's achievement at the age of thirty.

sorry for the tangential discourse here...
G


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

beetzart said:


> Then along comes Beethoven. His first two symphonies are very Haydnesque but then all of a sudden comes this monstrous piece called the 'Eroica'. Why? (I'm listening to it now and I'm getting very emotional).


Partly because of the political circumstances of the time, Beethoven admired what the French Revolution was about. He decided to dedicate the symphony to Napolean Bonaparte before Napolean crowned himself emperor, but crossed out the dedication in a state of fury after Napolean crowned himself. Beethoven made a hole in the title page of the autograpgh score when he crossed out the dedication in fury. So, there were certainly a lot of emotion and ideology surrounding its composition, not least musically speaking.

The symphony does indeed sound heroic, or at least the opening theme you mentioned about certainly does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_(Beethoven)


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

GraemeG said:


> I kind of imagine Mozart hearing it, and saying "Holy ****, I've got some serious competition here. _Jupiter's_ been well and truly trumped. Where's my manuscript paper?"
> What kind of work might he have written then?
> G


Well considering Mozarts symphonies were rapidly getting better (and more romantic), I imagine he would he would have already written that history altering piece already. Of course we'll never know, but I agree, it would have been wonderful to have Mozart and Beethoven alive and writing together, bouncing ideas off of each other.

Although I do think Jupiter trumps Eroica (just not in innovativeness).


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