Foreword: I have been teaching Beethoven's
Eroica for these few weeks. So I would like to share an article about this unusal symphony. In addition, this writing may be a good reference for the students to learn how to express musical sound in words.
Beethoven’s
Eroica
“It represents
not only one of the most incredible achievements in the history of symphony,
but also the most important step on the progression of the whole western music
history,” Paul Henry Lang, the renowned musicologist and critic, once stated it
when he commented on Beethoven symphony no. 3, Eroica (1803). Although Eroica was written more than
two hundred years ago, its impact on today’s listeners remains tremendous.
It has already
been widely known about Beethoven’s admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte and he
dedicated this symphony for him. But
after Napoleon’s self-coronation as the French Emperor, Beethoven gave up the
idea. In fact, this legend has nothing
related to the magnificent power of Eroica. Compared to the stormy impact Eroica
brought to the audience of different times and nations, the political
turbulence caused by Napoleon was but a slight summer breeze. In no more than a few decades did Europe
recover from Napoleon’s devastation. Eroica,
on the contrary, had changed the entire concept of symphony and effectively
brought the genre to a new stage.
Before Eroica
was premiered to his main patron Prince Lobkowitz in 1804, Beethoven had built
up his fame as a composer-performer by writing several instrumental pieces, including
at least two symphonies, three piano concertos, in the classical style of
Haydn. If Beethoven were merely
satisfied with these achievements and continued working in a similar style, he
might still had his name appeared in history with those contemporaries, such as
Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Lugwig Sphor, but he certainly would not have become a
revolutionary hero standing uniquely in the history of music.
Beethoven’s
revolutionary spirit has already been unleashed in the slow movements of both the
piano sonata no. 13, Pathetique and Piano Concerto no. 3. But it is still difficult to envisage the
later development of Beethoven’s musical style from these movements. Doubtless Eroica has a particular
attribute that no previous works of his possess. From the first note to the last, the music
seems to narrate the life of a dramatic hero struggling from a tragic opening
to a triumphant ending. In fact, this
narrative character enhanced by pure instrumental music is pioneering. Neither Mozart’s mature symphonies nor those
of Haydn can exert such expressive power.
In Beethoven’s hands, the classical ideal of balance of emotions and
intellects is no longer maintained. The
fact that Beethoven boldly gave up the classicism of Haydn and Mozart proved to
be far-reaching. Eroica becomes
the first symphonic work stepping into the terrain of Romanticism.
In the outer
appearance, Beethoven basically maintains the principles of what his
predecessors did to classical symphony for Eroica. For example, it is a symphony of four
movements, which is a typical classical style developed by Joseph Haydn. Also, Beethoven uses different keys to
express various contrasting moods in all movements and let the home key
returned after modulations, in order to keep unity. However, Beethoven makes a great change in the
design of structure. This change not
only makes an unavoidable expansion of the length, but also destroys the
classical balance between movements, and replaces it with the unceasing
dramatic impulses. Both the length and
complexity of the first movement has gone beyond all past instrumental
works. The first theme appears only in a
brief glimpse in the opening few bars, and thus, tonal unity has been broken
just after the first ten seconds. Not
until the music reaching the coda can a comparably stable theme be heard. This completeness makes the ending theme
looks like an opening theme, as if it should have appeared in the
exposition. In retrospect, Beethoven
seems to have raised a thirteen-minute whirling storm over the first
movement.
Beethoven’s
revolutionary “storm” commences by two Eb tonic chords calling in tutti. The “heroic” theme, which is based on the
arpeggiation of this Eb triad, then follows.
Putting tonic materials in the very beginning of a movement are the most
direct and effective ways to establish the stability of a work. But it is only a fleeting stability because
of the sudden intrusion of a C# note. According
to the principle of harmony, this dissonant C# must be resolved. This unpleasant intrusion disappears shortly
afterwards by resolving to another unstable dominant seventh chord. Music is said to go back to its stable “home”
again. But this “home” only reflects a
temporary placidity. A terrible storm is
forthcoming.
To our modern
ears, the chromatic C# note is only a piece of black cloud in the sky. Twentieth century music has been notorious
for consisting the ‘black cloud’ notes of what the principles of classical
harmony regard as “wrong.” To understand
the disturbance caused by this C#, we need only to recall the audience of the
late eighteenth-century Vienna.
Just before the
private premiere of Eroica to Prince Lobkowitz, the revolutionary spirit
has already pervaded the entire Continent.
The success of American Revolution in 1776 and French Revolution in 1789
brought a chain of impacts to the socio-political structure of Europe. One of the results was the rise of the social
status of bourgeoisie and layman. But
this rise simultaneously denotes the fall of the aristocracy. Doubtless the late 18th century is
a time for the blossom of humanity and equity, but it is also a time for the
growth of anxiety and frustration. When
the princes and nobles listened to symphonic works, they have already
accustomed to the so-called Haydnian elegance and nobility for years. This fading classical style was still a
highly revered beauty. The aristocratic
Viennese did not need anything brutal to raise their anxieties, or to increase
their worries. Thus, when Beethoven “Eroica”
stood before them in the concert, this inflected C# was seen as a loss of
social balance, or even a symbol of brutal invasion.
But even greater anxieties were bought to
those Viennese laymen. Just a few days
before Eroica’s first public performance in the concert hall (1805), Vienna
was occupied by Napoleon’s army. The
nobles fled the city. The audiences in
the concert were the ones threatened by military invasion. Thus it is not hard to understand why they
easily link the music of the first movement to a sonic description of a
battlefield, where they can think of general, soldiers, horse rearing, sabre
shining or column of men streaming through the mountain. The awed sounds of war, being fused with the
stirring music, were hovering among listeners. This inflected C#, therefore, was certainly
seen as a symbol of brutal invasion.
Instead of the
unstable C# note in the heroic theme, the other stormy feature embedded in Eroica
is the scalic running passages. These
passages can always arouse listeners a feeling of spirited forward
motions. It is essential for an
overwhelming musical storm. Although
Beethoven begins his heroic theme with triple time, he makes use of syncopation
and shift of dynamics to enhance a sense of two-beat march rhythm after the
short opening. In addition, using the
fragmented heroic theme as the main developing cell is another important source
for generating motions. The turbulent
storm first starts blowing in the low strings by the heroic theme. The high strings then answer. Every time when repeating, the theme is
raised a tone until it reaches the climax.
Only the first four notes of the main theme can survive after the
climax, and are taken gradually by the woodwinds and brasses. This is not a moment for rest, but the anticipation
for another flow. Shortly afterwards,
the four-note heroic fragment reoccurs with increasing frequency, arresting
every listener in a moment of high tension.
Another example
of Beethoven’s whirling storm happens in the second movement, the Funeral
March. After two-third of the music, the
opening theme returns softly in the first violin, hovering along the high
register without any support. The whole
orchestra then roars with an Ab. The
brass at the same time repeats the C, then the F over the agitated string
triplet-tremolo. The music now is like a
whirling storm, seeming to engulf everything without any intention to
stop. What the orchestra playing is no
longer the Mozartian slow movement of elegant singing, but a hysteric growl of
extreme pain that goes beyond any listener’s imagination. Never has such thing happened in previous
symphonies. Never such thing has
happened in the previous symphonies.
Furthermore, Beethoven seems to let his hero added with a little tragic,
dark color. He fragments the funeral
theme and let it dissolves in the quietness at the end of this movement,
symbolizing the death and getting buried of the hero. Is this tragic hero Beethoven himself or
other? Perhaps, no one knows the answer,
even Beethoven himself.
The replacement
of minuet and trio with scherzo in the third movement also reflects Beethoven’s
another innovative character. In order
to maintain the stormy motion of this movement, Beethoven gives up his
predecessors’ favorite, the courtly dance of minuet and trio. The music is no more “lofty” enough to please
the Viennese upper classes, or to extend their vanishing noble dreams. It is reformed to a spirited and energetic
chapter, seeming to mock at the hypocrisy of the Viennese upper class. In fact, the use of a scherzo to replace the
Minuet and Trio in the third movement of a symphony becomes one of the major
characteristics of Beethoven’s symphonies.
If Beethoven
were asked why he made such bold reformation, he might have answered like this:
“Why not!” A storm is still a
storm. There is no reason why the finale
of Eroica is not a storm. If the
finale of Haydn and Mozart’s symphony is only the dessert, without any
question, Beethoven’s finale will be the main course, or in the other words, the
most powerful part of the storm.
Usually, the classical symphony focuses on the first two movements in
which all important ideas are displayed.
The classical finale, thus, will be lighter and more relax in mood. But Eroica is absolutely
different. The overwhelming power of the
revolutionary storm can be easily felt in this triumphant ending. Beethoven must have known that a light and
vivid finale could not counterbalance the gigantic and complex preceding movements. Therefore, Beethoven not only uses the duple
meter, a March design for this spirited movement, but he also increases the
complexity of the music and makes the length two times longer than the usual
classical finale.
Furthermore, the
structure of this movement does not follow any classical model. Sometimes, the music flows in form of a
variation suite. But in another time, it
freely appears as a fugato. The heroic
theme propels forward like a fierce storm, seeming to use one man’s strength to
break all bondages of the old social hierarchy and set all the people of any
class free to a land of liberty, equity, and fraternity. This is why Sir George Grove has
commented: “The title of Eroica is about a portrait of Napoleon, but it is Beethoven who
paints his own protrait on it.”
In short, from no. 1 to no. 9 (Choral
Symphony), Beethoven’s symphonies can always enter into a new terrain that
no one has discovered. In fact, Eroica
was Beethoven’s most favorite symphony throughout his life. But not many Viennese contemporary listeners
showed the same appreciation. Some
critics fiercely attacked it by saying that it is the most difficult symphony
to understand. They criticized that
Beethoven could not control many parts of the music, letting them flowing
illogically. If Beethoven cut off some
unmanageable parts, the music could be more bright, fluent, and
understandable. As such, the Viennese
mass seems being unready to accept Beethoven’s revolutionary storm.
However, whether the 18th
century Viennese aristocratic listeners disliked this symphony, the old epoch
has passed. Eroica was just like
a short gleam from dawn after a long deep night, anticipating a splendid coming
of a new and dazzling era.
David Leung (theorydavid)
2012-09-10 (published)