Beethoven's Third Symphony (The Liszt Transcription)

October 28, 2001 AT NOON Played on the Ahlborn Organ

Follow This Link to Notes on Beethoven's Fifth

Follow This Link to Notes on Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2

Imagine you are living in the mid-19th century, and have heard of a great symphonic composer called Beethoven. It is a day's journey to the city with a symphony orchestra, so the only way you could hear his music was in a piano transcription. Franz Liszt transcribed all nine of the symphonies, creating piano works that could be heard anywhere there was a piano. The Third symphony is an example of a transcription that calls for a soloist with a virtuoso technique.

"I'd give another Kreutzer if they would stop!" That was the reported response of one weary listener at the 1805 premiere of Beethoven's Third Symphony. It was not, apparently, a comment upon the work's quality, but rather upon its length (twice as long as the longest previous symphony) and perhaps its power, which took many people by surprise, for this composition was highly unusual in both conception and execution. Three years earlier, the composer had declared, "I am not contented with my works so far. Henceforth I shall take a new path," and here he kept his promise. He broke from the mold of Mozart and Haydn to produce a grand symphony, a daring and dramatic work, stunning in its epic scope and emotional impact. Audiences which had become accustomed to the image of music being purely for entertainment suddenly faced a radical new idea, that like a literary masterpiece, a symphony could present its creator's image of the world. That concept lay at the heart of the Romantic revolution, and it was Beethoven who first brought Romanticism into music.

It is fitting that this piece had such a powerful impact on the public, for it was inspired by one of the most powerful of men of the day. Beethoven had been a great admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose vanquishing of royalty the composer viewed as heroic. Furthermore, with a concert tour to Paris in the works, the composer may have been considering how to smooth his reception with notoriously capricious Parisian audiences. Whatever the initial inspiration, in 1803 Beethoven complied with a suggestion from the French ambassador to Vienna that he begin a symphony honoring the "First Consul.". He described the piece as his "Bonaparte Symphony," and might have published it under that title, had not events taken a different turn.

In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France, and Beethoven, in a tremendous fury, scratched out the title page from the score. According to his friend and student Ferdinand Ries, he stormed that now even his hero had become a tyrant, and that he would not dedicate a symphony to such a person. The symphony's new sub-title, "Eroica," implied more of a general heroism than specific deeds, and its inscription, "composed to celebrate the memory of a great man," seems to refer to the earlier Napoleon, the idealistic young hero who now lived only in memory. When the work was published in 1806, it was dedicated not to Bonaparte, but to Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz, one of Beethoven's most loyal patrons.
The Eroica Symphony premiered in Vienna April 7, 1805.

Movement I
From the very opening of this performance, two thunderous E-flat chords nailed like pylons, greatness is evident. They are not swamped in a haze of bombast, just laid bare. The principal theme is stated with grace and beauty, and is woven twice over with high notes of purity and dignity. The first phrase beautifully woven around two harmonies before the introduction of the long second subject.
Movement II
The "Funeral March" is the longest movement, and this is partially due to the size of the principal theme: a broad melody in two portions, played out twice.

Movement III
Beethoven invests this movement with a series of contradictory episodes: the trio that begins in tragedy and twice reaches the heights of triumph, the despondent double fugue, a further change in harmony leading to an uneasy resolution into consolation, only for the movement to close in a final, shattering utterance of despair.

Movement IV
The final movement is not only unique in all Beethoven but unique in all music. The introduction to the movement is given in a fiery and startling manner, the building up the solemn theme leads into the main theme. The dance-rhythms, are darkly hued, as the main tune reappears in the revised form of the fugue. The theme plays in the most glowing terms, blazing triumphantly and at full throttle. The coda, one of Beethoven's most profound realizations, is thrillingly done here: the mood moving progressively from solemnity to the suspense of the final bars where Beethoven thrusts us back to the opening of the movement and lets the symphony end in triumph.

Today's performance of Liszt's Piano Transcription of Beethoven's Third Symphony is possible because of our organ's midi interface and the Ahlborn tone module. The computer interprets the digital music and outputs it to the various voices of the organ tone module.