The Symphony #3 by Beethoven was, in my view, a revolutionary work in the development of Music.
The foundational idea of the first movement of Beethoven’s Third Symphony is a narrative of struggle, which is a quality of the heroic archetype. This narrative is reflected in the structure of the piece at the large and small scales, and in how “dissonances” are generated and resolved in many aspects of the music, not just harmony.
The opening pensive first theme is an unusual instrumentation and articulation for a traditional heroic first theme; Beethoven here presents a legato theme in the cellos. This theme has two components, the first being the heroic arpeggiated figure which is strongly defined, followed by a shift into a chromatic pensive descent to a dissonant C-sharp, suggesting something dark and tormented is present.
The development section presents another kind of dissonance, this time playing with form; here Beethoven gives us a new theme in the remote key of E minor.
The second movement is the most programmatic, bearing the title “Marcia Funebre” The imagery of the title is heard from the very first measure the basses begin with a low muffled figure that seems to imitate military drums, and the somber c-minor melody beginning in the strings instantly brings to mind a solemn procession accompanying a fallen hero.
Rustic woodwind melodies, figures mimicking the prancing of horses, and brilliant horn calls suggest a natural setting in the third movement. The opening is pianissimo with strings playing a duple-meter figure spiccato, leading to the oboe’s rustic melody. There are characteristics of a scherzo here with the irregular phrase length with the first melody phrase being an eight-bar phrase, followed by a ten-bar phrase, as well as the constant beat displacement and the use of syncopation.
The fourth movement was perhaps the conception point from which Beethoven originally planned the entire symphony around the heroic idea.
Here is conductor Andrew Manze leading this symphony:
 by Beethoven){kind=link}