A thecnical, boring question.

[Enrique]

I was remembering Peters words about dissonance when replying Preston

The most dissonant part in the Eroica is actually where he blasts out an F major triad combined with the note E several times with full orchestra in the development section and creates great excitement and tension by delaying the resolution.

, and I set to find (sorry my English) the passage in the score where, at bar 276 I read the same notes Peter mentioned (don't know if this is the same passage).

I make this analysis: in 274 C major is (temporarily) established, a feeling I get in view of the previous bars. What happens next, if we disregard the E? Can I see those chords as IV of C?

[Peter]

I was remembering Peters words about dissonance when replying Preston
, and I set to find (sorry my English) the passage in the score where, at bar 276 I read the same notes Peter mentioned (don't know if this is the same passage).

I make this analysis: in 274 C major is (temporarily) established, a feeling I get in view of the previous bars. What happens next, if we disregard the E? Can I see those chords as IV of C?

No I don't think so because C major actually isn't properly established in the previous bar (there is no cadence), it is simply a chord of C in second inversion. Quijote should be able to analyse this passage for us - it resolves into E minor at 284.

[Enrique]

Let's then wait until he is back again in his trip. All that passage with the leaps in the violins, the tonality never settles at a given key. It's all the time moving! I suppose there are hundreds of examples of this. Curiously enough, the timpani notes enharmonically fit in the harmony. I had never noticed before, though I should have asked myself what they were doing there.

[Sorrano]

Just going from memory on this passage it seems to me that it is part of a modulation to e minor as Peter indicated.

[Quijote]

It is as Peter says, Enrique : at bar 274 there is indeed a 6/4 (second inversion) chord in C, but this is not a firm cadence. Those crashing chords starting at bar 276 (in ascending order A-C-E-F) cannot be seen within a C major context but must be heard as preparatory dissonances (flat supertonic seventh in first inversion [A-C-E-F] E minor context) leading to a superb dominant 9th (B-D#-F#-A-C, bars 280-282) sliding into a pure dominant 7th resolving onto E minor in bar 284.

PS : I haven't left for Vienna yet! That's from the 7-11 November.

[Quijote]

For a fuller analysis, I recommend this classic article:
Philip G. Downs, Beethoven's "New Way" and the "Eroica", The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 4, Special Issue Celebrating the Bicentennial of the Birth of Beethoven. (Oct., 1970), pp. 585-604.

I think it is available as a free download, or at least it was 7 years ago! Try www.jstor.org

[Quijote]

Further to my post just above, I hear those crashing dissonant chords (starting in bar 276) in "disjointed" relation to the very opening E-flat "bang- bang" chords that open the movement.

[Michael]

Just going from memory on this passage it seems to me that it is part of a modulation to e minor as Peter indicated.

I find this section of the Eroica totally fascinating.
The modulation to E minor exists at a very early stage in Beethoven's sketches. In this totally remote key, he brings in a new theme (or so everybody seems to think - although I always heard it as thematically connected to the main opening theme).

What is much more astonishing is the fact that Beethoven then brings in the actual main theme very abruptly in C major which reaches E flat major - which is the tonic! And this is long before the recapitulation.
Everybody keeps raving about the audacity of the "new theme" but without absolute pitch (or a score) most people (including yours truly) will never notice that Beethoven has done something even more extraordinary.

Even when he reaches the end of the development, after messing around with the premature horn entry, he has the bravery to see-saw between the sharp and flat side of E flat so that he virtually creates a second recapitulation!

[Quijote]

Just to explain the above "relation", if you imagine for a moment the two opening E-flat hammered chords as canon fire (being close to the weapon, it's a short, impacted sound), as a listener (or General/Emperor) listening from afar, the sound becomes distorted and lengthened.

[Quijote]

I find this section of the Eroica totally fascinating.
The modulation to E minor exists at a very early stage in Beethoven's sketches. In this totally remote key, he brings in a new theme (or so everybody seems to think - although I always heard it as thematically connected to the main opening theme).

That is quite right, Michael. A "reduction" of the "new theme" in E minor is strongly linked to the opening E-flat theme. It's minor-inflected variation, no doubt in my mind or ear!!

[Quijote]

I don't really know, and it's a flight of fancy on my part, but this (the Eroica) is B's true "Battle Symphony" (the first movement, in any case), and not that other rag officially called "The Battle Symphony".

[Enrique]

Quijote, I am sacándole punta al lápiz (sharping the pencil's point) in order to annotate the score with the Roman numerals. The five "clashing" chords my ear really does not know where I am in regard to key or scale degree. Solo está "a la espera" (so sorry no to have a good bilingual dictionary with lot of idiomatic expressions). I think I'll take the dust off my Piston and for the 40th time begin to study it, although nothing can replace the teacher.

OK. Now nobody has said a word about what makes this movement so bold, among so many other things. All the way from 250 up to the famous chords Beethoven could actually have done like 20th century composers: change the time signature (or what ever its name is) and use things like 2/4, 2/4, 2/4, 2/4, 3/4, 1/4, and so on! Here the bars have retaken their original roll of easing reading! Beethoven doesn't care for them. Its the rhythmic structure above all that makes the 1st movement so appealing.

Something like this, of disregarding the bars and change the meter can be seen in Brahms, underlining this fact by the use of slurs.

Speaking of this movement, I think its ennding is the mos formidable of Beethoven's endings of a movement.