Introduction

In many respects, Beethoven’s Third Symphony was to the 19th century what Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was to the 20th: a piece of music that changed the cultural landscape for ever. In Beethoven’s case, he brought a new symphonic scale into being – his ‘Eroica’ is bigger, longer and more wide-ranging in its expressive impact than anything that had been written in the medium before, even in his own music. His first two symphonies were natural extensions of the Classical form developed by Haydn and Mozart in the preceding decades, but this new work was a revolutionary leap forward in terms of what a symphony could be.

Beethoven responding to criticism of the symphony’s length

The ‘Eroica’ is also the subject of much myth-making – for instance, various versions exist of the story that he violently excised his originally planned dedication to Napoleon from the manuscript. But, as we shall see, Beethoven’s relationship with the French consul-turned-emperor is arguably more complicated than is first apparent. Scholars continue to debate aspects of the work, from its external characteristics to its innermost workings and this guide attempts to draw together some of the threads of the symphony’s various controversies and mysteries, as much as its certainties, to provide as rounded a picture as is possible of this titanic work.