30 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC
Ludwig van Beethoven was a partisan of
noble humanitarian principles, joining
those who saw the democratic ideals of an-
cient Greece reflected in the aspirations of
the Jacobins of post-Revolutionary France.
At the head of the Jacobins was Napoleon
Bonaparte, and Beethoven was among the
political idealists who viewed Napoleon as a
repository of hope for the social enlighten-
ment of humankind.
At the urging of the future King of Swe-
den, Beethoven began contemplating a mu-
sical celebration of Napoleon as early as 1797.
As his early sketches coalesced into a sym-
phony, Beethoven resolved not to simply
dedicate his composition to Napoleon, but
to actually name it after him. In the spring
of 1804, just as Beethoven completed his
symphonic tribute, news arrived that Napo-
leon had crowned himself Emperor, that the
standardbearer of republicanism had seized
power as an absolutist dictator. It fell to
Beethoven’s pupil Ferdinand Ries to inform
the temperamental composer, and to relate
the scene (which must have occurred in May
1804) in a later biography:
Beethoven held [Napoleon] in extremely
high esteem at that time and compared
him to the greatest Roman consul. Both I
and several of his closer friends saw this
symphony lying on his table, already cop-
ied out in score; at the very top of the ti-
tle-page was the word “Buonaparte” and
at the very bottom “Luigi van Beethoven”
— and that was all. Whether he intended
to fill in the middle, and with what, I do
not know. I was the first one to bring him
the news that Buonaparte had declared
himself emperor — whereupon he flew
into a rage, shouting: “Is even he nothing
but an ordinary man! Now he will also
trample upon human rights and become a
slave to his own ambition; now he will set
himself above all other men and become
a tyrant.” Beethoven went to the table,
grabbed the top of the title-page, tore it
in two, and threw it to the floor. The first
page was re-written and the symphony
was then for the first time given the title of
Sinfonia eroica.
The autograph score thus mutilated has
disappeared, but the library of Vienna’s Ge-
sellschaft der Musikfreunde owns a copyist’s
manuscript that Beethoven marked and
used for conducting — and it tells a similar
tale. Its title page originally read (in Italian)
“Sinfonia grande intitolata Bonaparte del
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, Sinfonia eroica
Ludwig van Beethoven
In Short
Born: December 15, 1770 (probably, since he
was baptized on the 17th), in Bonn, then an
independent electorate of Germany
Died: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria
Work composed: summer or fall of 1802
to the spring of 1804; a prominent theme in
the finale dates from 1801; dedicated to the
music-loving nobleman Prince Franz Joseph
von Lobkowitz
World premiere: in private performances at
Prince Lobkowitz’s palace in Vienna during the
second half of 1804; first public performance,
April 7, 1805, at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien,
with the composer conducting
New York Philharmonic premiere:
February 18, 1843, Ureli Corelli Hill, conductor,
which marked the US Premiere
Most recent New York Philharmonic
performance: April 7, 2018, Esa-Pekka
Salonen, conductor
Estimated duration: ca. 47 minutes
