"Heroic" Music: Beethoven's Third Symphony, the Eroica

For Symphony at 7 this evening, we have music of "Heroic" dimensions from Beethoven, his Third Symphony, the Eroica.  It was completed in 1804 and first performed the following year.  It lives up to its title. We know that in 1802 Beethoven contemplated ending his own life, so distraught was he over his growing deafness.  But he rejected that option in favor of living for his art, channeling all his emotion and passion into his music.  He wrote, "I am not satisfied with my work up to the present time.  From today I mean to take a new road."  That road led to the Third Symphony, much longer than any previous symphony and a work of great power and intensity, essentially beginning what we now call the Romantic Era in music. Beethoven himself titled the piece "Eroica," Italian for "Heroic."  He originally meant for it to refer to Napoleon as a heroic champion of the people in the French Revolution, but when Beethoven heard that Napoleon declared himself Emperor, he scratched out the dedication to Bonaparte and wrote, "to the memory of a great man," as if he were dead.  Well, whatever Beethoven meant, the title may just as well refer to himself. Ludwig van Beethoven may not have been a hero on a battlefield of war, but the "heroic" nature of his determination to continue  producing some of the greatest musical art of our culture, despite his eventual complete deafness, is nevertheless worthy of our continuing admiration. Join us on Symphony at 7 for this "Heroic" music.  Here's a sample from three great conductors: http://youtu.be/8RFG5rGVL1s