Symphony No. 3 in E‑Flat Major

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 is often regarded as the first true symphony of the Romantic era, and by some as the greatest of all symphonies. Beethoven had recently encountered the music being created in post-Revolutionary Paris and absorbed its power and vigour into his own—as heard in the Third Symphony’s new-found dynamism, emotional range, daring dissonances and unprecedented length. The egalitarian political outlook emanating from France appealed to him, too, and accordingly he named his new work “Bonaparte” after its charismatic figurehead. Upon learning in 1804 that Napoleon had declared himself emperor, however, he angrily scratched out the dedication: “Now he will tread under foot all the rights of man”, he furiously declared. “He will become a tyrant”. When the work was first performed the following year it bore the designation Sinfonia Eroica, or Heroic Symphony, composed to “celebrate the memory of a great man”. Was the hero in fact Beethoven himself, the symphony tracking his confrontation with, and artistic triumph over, his encroaching deafness? The invincible life force of the opening movement contrasts richly with the second movement’s “Funeral March”, whose halting anguish has ensured its performance at high-profile memorials ever since—and was memorably quoted by Richard Strauss in Metamorphosen (1944-45), his shocked elegy for war-ravaged Dresden. The tightly wound energy of the “Scherzo” then leads to the finale’s jubilant variations. In his Sinfonia Eroica, Beethoven had—like Napoleon—turned tradition on its head.