Beethoven began work on his Third Symphony in 1802, right around the time he wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament (the manifesto in which he declared his intention to live entirely for and through his art). He completed the monumental work roughly a year later. Subtitled “Eroica,” or “heroic,” the Third was the first of his symphonies with an implied story—although the tale he was telling may have shifted during the creative process. A revolutionary at heart, Beethoven had long hoped that the feudalism which had dominated Europe for so long would be eradicated—and he originally dedicated the work to Napoleon, the man he believed might accomplish the task. According to Beethoven's student and biographer, Ferdinand Ries, the composer's feelings changed when Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804. Ries explains, “I was the first to bring him the news that Bonaparte had proclaimed himself emperor, whereupon he flew into a rage and cried out: 'Is he too, then, nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he, too, will trample on the rights of man, and indulge only his ambition! He will exalt himself above all others, become a tyrant!” Beethoven reportedly flew to the table, took hold of the title page by the top, tore it in two, and threw it on the floor. Upon its publication in 1806, the symphony bore a new inscription: “Sinfonia Eroica, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.” 

While today's audiences tend to focus on the Third Symphony's connection to Napoleon, listeners in Beethoven's time had a different reaction to the work. As one early critic explained, opinions were mixed. The composer's “very special friends” felt that “this symphony is a masterpiece, that it is in exactly the true style for more elevated music, and that if it does not please at present, it is because the public is not sufficiently educated in art to be able to grasp all of these elevated beauties.” At the other extreme was a group which “utterly denies this work any artistic value and feels that it manifests a completely unbounded striving for distinction and oddity, which, however, has produced neither beauty nor true sublimity and power.” The view of the former—Beethoven's allies —predominates today. 

—©Jennifer More, 2022