Beethoven's Eroica Symphony
Beethoven's Eroica Symphony - updated after 10/17 class

1802 Emotional upheavel, dissatisfaction with earlier music and wanted to do something different. Dedicated to Napoleon. While Napoleon went through and captured home town of Bonn, 1803-4 - wrote Napoleon was born of a poor family and able to reach high position (SAID he was a liberator). Beethoven wanted to have something appropriate to dedicate to Napoleon. He then tore up title page after Napoleon declared himself emperor...Beethoven said he is going to tread on the rights of men (dictator). Called the symphony Eroica (in memory of a great man).
4 movements. Musical features:
1st movement Enormous proportions. Unheard of lengths, heroic in proportions.
2nd movement instead of a typical slow lovely lyrical movement, it is a funeral march.
3rd movement Scherzo (Beethoven didn't invent the concept - Haydn did - but used it more and more as a replacement for the minuet). Literally means joke or jest.
4th movement. Finale. Wrestled with final movement. Usually you want the audience to be happy when they leave and give the final movement in a simple form. Beethoven uses theme and variations.

First movement: Avoids the cliche's of typical sonata-allegro form.
Hemiola. Sfz's, dynamics and powerful accents. Dynamics are VERY important. Uses crescendo to p. Not unified melodically.
No introduction. Theme 1 is in cellos (NOT first violins). Cellos more popular in Romantic period. Theme is just a triad.
Beethoven uses seamless construction (continues smoothly without interruption). No signals like hammerstrokes.
New key, change in orchestration, new key.
Transition 1: piano like Dotted rhythm.
Transition 2: new motive eighth note two sixteenths over diminished harmony.
Beethoven makes the transitions thematic and significant.
Second theme=repeated chords, clearly in Bb (not significant in movement). Shifts from one choir of instruments to the next choir of instruments.
Development: p. dolce=transition 1 theme quarter rest dotted quarter eighth, barline, quarter. Then development of 1st theme motiv = half quarter, half quarter, quarter, rest
The all three motives at once.
New sound no one had ever heard before: F major 7 chord over A.
Middle of development section there is a new melody in e minor (piece is in Eb major, using very lyrical theme for replacement of second theme.)
At end of development, there is a false horn entry (Beethoven's humor tongue in cheek).
Lots of subtle changes in orchestration.
Coda is expanded to the level of equal importance with other sections. Brings back more chords, more themes, etc.

YouTube video below conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Music begins at 6:54. It's worth listening to the interview beforehand about the background to the symphony and what several orchestra members think of the work.

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Second movement is a funeral march. To the death of the hero [Napoleon?]. Very expansive, and unheard of for a movement to be nearly 20 minutes long!
Third movement: scherzo. Very fast triple meter, but it feels like it's in 1. Some hemiolas and other rhythmic surprises throughout this movement.
Fourth movement - a theme and variations. Each variation gets more and more intense, and it doesn't end when you think it's going to - it keeps on going to the next variation!