Prior to the nineteenth century, European art had been strongly tied to religion. Vienna, the home of Ludwig van Beethoven, was no exception. Vienna, the capital city of one of the most powerful German nations, was home to the Hapsburgs, a deeply committed Catholic dynasty which traced its power back through the Holy Roman Empire. Like its rulers, Vienna was also deeply Catholic, and unlike many severe sects of Protestants who questioned and rejected the propriety of art in society, and like Catholic societies elsewhere in Europe, Vienna saw the need for art in promoting religious ideals and beliefs. The result was an art movement called Baroque, which promoted the prowess and sanctity of the Church-dominated Catholic countries.
The leading figures
in Baroque music, which was predominant in Catholic countries for
two hundred years, were Jan Peterzoon Sweelinck, Heinrich Schutz,
Giovanni Palestrina, and Mozart. Hapsburg subject and Vienna resident,
Ludwig van Beethoven was to break the hold of the Baroque tradition.
Unlike earlier Baroque composers, Beethoven’s music, rhythmic
and energetic, combined the sacred and the irreligious. He was
the first musician to bring his art forcefully into the secular
world. Beethoven’s music represented the new social and political
world that was being born in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
Beethoven’s music
can be seen as a reaction to classicism. Beethoven was the first
romantic musician, and his symphonies, while unparalleled musically,
also expressed ideas that were sweeping thorugh Europe at the time,
among them nationalism. In Beethoven’s time, people who used to
identify themselves solely by religion were beginning to identify
themselves by nationality. Nowhere was this more true than in Beethoven’s
native Vienna, where Hungarians, Slovakians, Silesians, and Bohemians
all lived.
Beethoven’s music also
expressed two other popular ideas of the early nineteenth century,
the lofty aspirations of liberal democracy and social reform. These
viewed echoed loudly in Vienna, a timeless city, which was ruled
dynastically for centuries and which kept the working poor living
on the shanty outskirts of the city. Beethoven never lived to see
the liberal revolution of 1848 and its subjugation by the forces
of reaction, Austrian officials and nobles. Yet his music was
a conspicuous manifestation of what many native Germans -- and,
more specifically, many native Viennese -- hoped to accomplish.
Along with Beethoven’s music, the desire for liberal change sweeping
through the Austrian intelligensia were also reflected in the painting
and cafes of Vienna. However, Beethoven’s third symphony, Eroica,
not only best captures the ideas fair rule, liberty, and democracy,
three main romantic tenets; it is also the best example of what
the artist found ideal. In Eroica Beethoven praised the
progressive and humanist works of Napoleon Bonaparte. Yet after
Napolean declared himself emperor of France, a disillusioned Beethoven
left the heroic subject of his symphony nameless. One of his
most famous works, Eroica, best exemplifies the ideology
and hopes that Beethoven, Romanticism, and patriots in pre-revolutionary
Vienna stood for .
The inspiration for
the symphony came from one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s diplomats .
He suggested that the world famous musician write a tribute to
the world famous leader. Beethoven was a man in his thirties at
the time and could recall his youthful embrace of the romantic
notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity that Consul Bonaparte
stood for. Beethoven was also impressed and inspired by Bonaparte’s
desire to open careers to talent, regardless of the person’s social
position. William Felmmin would later write that the symphony
Beethoven wrote to express these ideas “rallied the progressive
and freedom-loving people of all nations around his standard.”1
In Eroica, Beethoven used proud and triumphant string instruments,
playing hard and poignant notes mixed in with more subtle and longer
and longer notes, to juxtapose many of the large struggles he saw
in society. Beethoven uses these contrasting notes to present and
weigh many contrasting ideas. These notes express the relationship
between action and fear. They express dominance and subservience
as well as the struggle between revolution and oppression.
Symphony Number
Three includes many other innovations. The first movement introduces
the forces of good and evil. This movement sets the stage for a
heroic conquest of the good. The second movement of the symphony
presents a funeral scene. The scene is meant to demonstrate the
immense piety and honor of one who has forfeited his life for a
cause. This martyrdom was commonplace in early romantic painting
and poetry. However, it had never truly been attempted at this proportion
in music, mainly because it was so difficult to express. Through
measured rhythms and garbled sonorities, Beethoven expressed his
romantic belief that for all advances in history some must give
up their lives. These men he identifies as heroes.
In the third
movement of his symphony Beethoven demonstrates his dynamism. By
titling his third movement “Scherzo,” he was breaking an honored
rule of formal symphony: one must never title an individual movement
of a symphony. This action clearly represents Beethoven’s separation
from the Baroque period and his growth into something far more
revolutionary. His revolutionary titling of the third movement underscores
his epic piece.
The final movement
of the symphony is comprised of a series of variations, unequal
in length and different in style. The movement begins in E flat
and raises five tones to B flat, then falls an octive to B flat
below, and then again to E flat. This begins a strong melody which
Beethoven uses to symbolize a victorious finale. The strong finale
is emblematic of dominance over submission and revolution over opposition.
The end of Eroica symbolizes Beethoven’s hope that one man
giving his life to a cause can change an entire society.
Eroica
was released in 1804, the same year that Napoleon crowned himself
emperor of France. This gross abuse of power compelled Beethoven
to separate Bonaparte from his definition of hero. Dissilusioned
by Bonaparte’s action, Beethoven decided to dedicate his symphony
to “the memory of a great man.” This action proves again Beethoven’s
deep beliefs in liberal democracy and his strict and romantic definition
of heroism.
Beethoven’s romantic
dream would not be realized in 1848, in Vienna and throughout Europe.
In 1848 aristocrats and nobles from Vienna helped stifle Hungarian
nationalists and Hungary would remain a conquered Hapsburg territory
for many more years. Timelessness in Vienna remained. Although Beethoven’s
influence on the Austrian revolution of 1848 in undeniable, other
facets of Viennese culture were influential. Paintings and cafes
both angled Viennese culture toward revolution.
Although Beethoven’s
music was the greatest cultural impetus toward revolution, the composer
did not limit his work to his political and social beliefs. At the
peak of his career Beethoven began to experience a loss of hearing.
His one jewel in life -- his music -- was being robbed. After considering
suicide he said, “I will take fate by the throat; it will not bend
me completely to its will.”2 Near the end of his life,
Beethoven drew his work from personal experience. His work became
deeper and darker as it expressed his depression at losing his hearing
and the hearbreak of failed romances. Beethoven could not hear many
of his final works. Alone, he died quietly in 1827. Although his
music proved to greatly inspire the patriots of his homeland, it
is remembered mainly as a manifestation of the beauty of the piano.
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