“Eroica” by Beethoven, story of a symphony between admiration and hatred of Napoleon

As a correlate of the individual-society duo in the human sciences, in the art world and in particular in the analysis and criticism of artistic expressions, the need to define how a work is an expression of personality and meaning has always been there. vital and subjective of its author, and how much it reveals the social and political context, that is to say the “conditions of production”.

A good example of this tension – not least because of the way one of his approaches has become popular over time – was the third of the nine symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven, created in 1805. Behind the subtitle by which it is known -“Heroic”- this work reflects how one of these terms -the contextuals- ended up tipping the balance, at least for the general public , more towards the pole of public aspects and less towards private and purely subjective aspects. Unbalanced positions of this type end up attacking a richer and more complex understanding of the work of a creator (if one places oneself on the side of the “sender”) and also against the concomitant possibility of enjoy more (now looking at the “recipient”).

From personal angst to political disillusionment

In the reconstitution of the conception of the symphony opus 55, the famous – and furious, according to the legend but also the documents – the decision of Beethoven to cross out the dedication of the work to Napoleon Bonaparte after his proclamation as emperor, he imposed an understanding of it almost exclusively from the angle of the author’s involvement in the public life of his time. Even more – which will be reproduced largely with the 9th – with the identification of the musician with the republican ideas. The testimony of Ferdinand Ries, secretary and assistant to the musician: “In this symphony, Beethoven had proposed Bonaparte as the protagonist, when he was still First Consul. Until then, Beethoven made an extraordinary case for him and saw in him someone identical to the great Roman consuls. (…). I was the first to announce to Beethoven that Bonaparte had declared himself emperor. Hearing this, he became enraged and shouted, “He’s no longer a vulgar man!” Now he will flout all human rights, he will only obey his ambition; he will want to rise above the others, and he will become a tyrant! He went to his desk, picked up the title sheet, tore it up and threw it on the floor. The first page was rewritten, then the symphony received its name for the first time: Eroica Symphony”. (Jean and Brigitte Massin. Ludwig van Beethoven).

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But, in any case, if we dive into the complex and existentially zigzag life of the German musician, this determination could be attenuated and, in this way, illuminate a little more the sometimes mysterious crossroads -for subjective- by which they cross artists’ creative processes. Thus, the public could add other answers and different content to why the originality and specificity of this work and many others considered unique.

A testament to creation

Barely two years before the creation of this symphony, Beethoven went through one of the most agonizing moments of his life: when some of his heartbreaks converged with the growing awareness of his inexorable deafness. These crossroads are dramatically movingly summed up in the document known as the “Heiligenstad Testament”, a desperate letter that Beethoven wrote (although he did not send it and was found among his papers after his death) in 1802 to his two brothers. Among other impressions, the musician wrote in his own handwriting: “Sometimes I thought I could bear all this, oh! How cruelly I was then led to renew the sad experience of no longer hearing” (…). Absolutely alone, or almost, only insofar as the most absolute necessity requires it, I will be able to resume contact with society; I have to live like an outlaw. If I approach people, I am immediately seized with a terrible anguish; that of exposing myself to being noticed on my condition (…). But what a humiliation when someone next to me heard the sound of a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or when someone heard a shepherd singing and I heard nothing either . Such situations drove me to despair, and I was on the verge of ending my own life”.

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But Beethoven did not. Like other times throughout his life, he manages to overcome the scourges of fate through art (“he alone saved me”) and his creative impulse is stronger. Although it may seem paradoxical – it was not – the writing of the “Testament…” was parallel to the beginnings of the conception of a new symphony which he not only sought not to resemble his two previous but also to what had been the emblematic expressions of the genre in its brilliant predecessors (Haydn there mozart). And so, the heroic it would become a unique work: it is the longest symphony composed until then in the history of music (48 minutes against the 27 of the first or even the 34 of the second); the first of its four movements – which begins in an unprecedented way with two strong chords – is, for its part, the longest and only surpassed by that of its masterpiece: the Novena; the second is a funeral march – also quite innovative – which replaced the triumphal march written before the cancellation of the dedication and, finally, the fourth takes up a theme to which the musician had already resorted in his work The Creatures of Prometheusonly that in this context the allusion to the titan who stole fire from the gods to offer it to mortals, acquires a very different meaning.

So when we reflect on the innovative intentions that Beethoven tried to capture in this piece, we can understand the desperation of Heiligenstadt and, at the same time, much of what is being played out in the interstices of the forging of the processes of creation that only ends with the death of its protagonists.

Perhaps more than the pure and simple denomination of “Eroica” does much more honor to the complexity of his creative process – public and private – the final description that Beethoven himself gave to his work after the famous erasure: ” Eroica Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man”. It was perhaps his colleague Richard Wagner who better understood the complexity of life -and especially Beethoven’s creative life- when he defined it “like a titan who fought against the gods”. Today we could speak of a clear example of resilience.

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