Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony represents a turning point not only in Beethoven’s career, but also in the history of music, a stature shared by few other works, such as Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
The “Eroica” raises fascinating issues: the personal circumstances of its genesis at a crucial juncture in Beethoven’s life; its relationship to the political events of the day, specifically to Napoleon; and the ways in which audiences of his time first received what many found to be a “horribly long” and “most difficult” piece of music.
It is striking that early listeners and critics, those writing during the initial 10 years or so of the work’s existence, did not talk about the issues most discussed today: the Symphony’s relation to Beethoven’s life or to Napoleon. They viewed the “Eroica” more as a bizarre but original composition, more sublime than beautiful.
Its unprecedented length, technical challenges, and uncompromising aesthetic stance seemed to aim beyond entertainment, forcing Beethoven’s contemporaries to rethink what a symphony should be and do.
Here is a recorded performance by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Judge for yourself…
