Interesting new article

[Cetto von Cronstorff]

Rita Steblin, 'Who Died? The Funeral March in Beethoven's Eroica'

[Hofrat]

Most interesting!!

[susanwen]

I've long believed that the second movement of the Seventh sounds like a funeral march, but completely different from the Third Symphony. The Third's funeral march is dignified, honoring a dead soldier. The first note of the second movement of the Seventh SOUNDS like death - despair. I can only think of Beethoven's mother. There's nothing in the Third Symphony to suggest PERSONAL grief. When he wrote a funeral march, he was probably thinking of people who had died, that's only natural when composing a funeral march (I'm not a composer, I'm just contemplating the scene). Personal grief would have been out of place when honoring a fallen hero - it calls for an evocation of Valhalla. So I'd imagine that whatever musical notions he had that didn't fit in with what he was writing must have gone into his sketchbook, and he was drawing up the grief for the Seventh symphony.

This is all fanciful on my part - is there any record of when he started sketching the Seventh?

[DavidO]

Thanks for the link to the article. It's a good read, & I'm always in the mood for a tantalizing hypothesis.

In fact, I ran across this tantalizing hypothesis some time back, written & posted by someone named David Roell:

http://www.astroamerica.com/beethoven.html

I won't spoil it in case you feel like reading it all the way through, but Roell's thesis is that the Eroica 2nd movement does, in fact, memorialize a royal -- but not Louis Ferdinand or Napoleon or Max Franz or any other prince or king of Europe ........................



It memorializes a queen! (wink)

[Hofrat]

I prefer Ms. Steblin's article over Mr. Roell's.

[Michael]

Why must everyone demand a programme from a symphony? Beethoven put a funeral march after the opening allegro simply because the symphonic form and the logic of the musical argument demanded it. I wish we had never heard of Napoleon or Abercrombie in relation to that work! If the third symphony had remained nameless, and the word "funebre" had never been attached to the second movement, we would be quite happy with that marvellous flowing allegro, that soul-searing slow movement, that energetic scherzo and that fertile finale? What is the meaning of the first movement: E flat major - the journey away from it and the long journey back, and the harmonic cloud that quickly comes and is not "explained" until the recapitulation, where Beethoven is so confident of his musical powers that he moves away from the tonic yet again, to the sharp and flat side of it, until he can build to an absolutely overwhelming E flat climax that is not arbitrary loudness but an absolute necessity. If you want to know what the "Eroica" is about, just listen! There is plenty going on without an external "story".

[Peter]

Why must everyone demand a programme from a symphony? Beethoven put a funeral march after the opening allegro simply because the symphonic form and the logic of the musical argument demanded it. I wish we had never heard of Napoleon or Abercrombie in relation to that work! If the third symphony had remained nameless, and the word "funebre" had never been attached to the second movement, we would be quite happy with that marvellous flowing allegro, that soul-searing slow movement, that energetic scherzo and that fertile finale? What is the meaning of the first movement: E flat major - the journey away from it and the long journey back, and the harmonic cloud that quickly comes and is not "explained" until the recapitulation, where Beethoven is so confident of his musical powers that he moves away from the tonic yet again, to the sharp and flat side of it, until he can build to an absolutely overwhelming E flat climax that is not arbitrary loudness but an absolute necessity. If you want to know what the "Eroica" is about, just listen! There is plenty going on without an external "story".

I half agree with you Michael - a programme is not necessary for the enjoyment or understanding of the work. However Beethoven did have an individual in mind for his funeral march, but like the Immortal beloved we will probably never know and obviously he didn't think it necessary that we should. I cannot agree that a funeral march was the only logical 2nd movement - only as part of Beethoven's scheme, but not solely from a musical perspective.

[Cetto von Cronstorff]

...but like the Immortal beloved we will probably never know

The Immortal Beloved was the topic of a research project that Steblin has been working on between 2002 and 2005. She claims to have solved the riddle. Who wouldn't?

[Peter]

The Immortal Beloved was the topic of a research project that Steblin has been working on between 2002 and 2005. She claims to have solved the riddle. Who wouldn't?

Thanks for that interesting article Cetto - unfortunately the link doesn't work for the Immortal beloved and I'd be interested to read yet another theory!

[Cetto von Cronstorff]

Thanks for that interesting article Cetto - unfortunately the link doesn't work for the Immortal beloved and I'd be interested to read yet another theory!

I guess one has to reload the browser as soon as the failure message appears.

Here's the summary:

"Die ""Unsterbliche Geliebte""? Josephine Gräfin Brunswick, Beethoven und das kulturelle Leben Wiens im frühen 19. Jahrhundert"

In order to illuminate the personality of the woman Beethoven loved, Josephine Gräfin Brunswick-Deym (1779-1821) – the composer sent her fourteen love letters in 1805-1808 – I located, studied, dated and transcribed all of the surviving correspondence between Josephine and her first husband, Joseph Graf Deym (1752-1804). These 108 letters are found in archives in Jind ich v Hradec, Czech Republic (Nachlaß Deym) and in Budapest, Staatsarchiv (Nachlaß Brunswick). They reveal that the marriage was not unhappy, as Therese Gräfin Brunswick reported in her memoirs of 1846, but was filled with mutual love: the letters even contain erotic passages. My book manuscript, with the tentative title Beethoven’s Beloved Josephine, her Personality Revealed: The Marriage Letters with Count Joseph Deym, has already been accepted for publication in the series: Wissenschaftliche Publikationen, Reihe IV, Schriften zur Beethoven-Forschung, Verlag Beethoven-Haus Bonn, edited by Ernst Herttrich, Director of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn (to appear in 2006). This book will contain all of the marriage letters, with c. 500 footnotes identifying the people, places and unusual items mentioned therein, plus parts of other letters (from Josephine’s mother, brother and two sisters) and documents (details of the wedding – found in Bratislava; Deym’s estate settlement – found in Prague) that shed further light on the years 1799-1804. This was the period of Josephine’s marriage to Deym, an important cultural figure in Vienna: he owned and directed the Wax Museum at Rotenturm, the city’s prime tourist attraction, and commissioned pieces for his musical clocks from both Mozart and Beethoven. In addition, the book will include all of the passages in Brunswick family letters that mention Beethoven – he taught Josephine and played concerts in her house – and will correct serious errors that appear in the Beethoven literature, including the wrong date of Josephine’s marriage. My preliminary research work in Prague – examining the letters and diaries of Josephine’s friends – has not yet established her presence in Bohemia in July 1812, but has located unknown eye-witness accounts of Beethoven’s concertizing in Vienna, which I hope to publish in scholarly articles.

[Peter]

I guess one has to reload the browser as soon as the failure message appears.

Yes thanks, reloading was the answer. Wasn't Therese Von Brunsvik referring to Josephine's 2nd husband Stackelberg, not Deym when she talked about the unhappy marriage? So I don't get Steblin's point about the Deym letters.

[gprengel]

is there any record of when he started sketching the Seventh?

The earliest sketch for the 7th symphony - and this was the theme for the second movement! - was from I think 1806 when he was sketching the stringquartett op.59,3! This theme originally was thought to be the slow movement theme of this quartett. Probably Beethoven realised that it doesn't fit
too much for a stringquartett and used another thema - also in a-minor!
So he kept this theme about 5 years till it came up again in 1811 among the sketches for the 1st movement.

Gerd

[Hofrat]

Dear Gerd;

Beethoven frequently recyled discarded themes. Your example is a point well taken. My favorite example of recyling is the "Prisoners' Chorus" from *Fidelio* which was a discarded theme from the 4th piano concerto!

[gprengel]

Dear Gerd;

My favorite example of recyling is the "Prisoners' Chorus" from *Fidelio* which was a discarded theme from the 4th piano concerto!

From the 4th piano concerto? Do you know for which movement it should have been used? I can't see where the chorus theme could fit in the concerto because it's so different.

I think the most known example for this is the theme of the last mov. from the quartett op. 132 which originally should be the theme for the last movement of the 9th symphony (originally not a chorus finale). This stringquartett theme is fantastic but I can't imagine this to be a theme for a symphony.

Gerd

[Hofrat]

Dear Gerd;

I do not remember from which movement of the 4th piano concerto Beethoven took the "Prisoners' Chorus" theme. In the concerto, the discarded theme was a rapid passage that Beethoven slowed down considerably for its final placement in *Fidelio*.