Expert-led trips to the musical capitals of Europe

Political allegory finds potent artistic manifestation in Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont. When Beethoven composed the overture and incidental music to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Egmont between 1809 and 1810, Europe was engulfed in the Napoleonic Wars (1800-1814), during which Napoleon dramatically extended the reach of the French empire. Goethe’s historical play Egmont (1788) describes the Count of Egmont, a sixteenth-century Flemish nobleman who was executed for fighting against Spanish domination in the Netherlands. The celebration of the heroic efforts of the Count of Egmont to resist foreign oppression undoubtedly resonated for Beethoven, whose city of residence, Vienna, was twice occupied by Napoleon (in 1805 and 1809). The Overture to Egmont proves remarkably powerful, opening with an unmistakable gravitas, followed by a succession of themes that seem to illustrate Count Egmont’s life and struggles. By this point in his career Beethoven had succeeded in uniting vigorous, dynamic musical expression with masterful technical fluency, and the Overture to Egmont stands as a testament to this achievement.

This was written by Molly Barnes, a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Department of Music. She wrote it for the program of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique conducted by John Eliot Gardiner in November 2011.

Some years before he composed his Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”), Beethoven is said to have declared to a friend, “From this day forth I shall forge a new path.” Composed in 1803-1804, the “Eroica” manifests one of the striking examples of Beethoven’s bold “new path,” with its enormously increased dimensions compared to his first two symphonies, astounding technical facility, and consistent originality. Beethoven had composed the symphony to honor his revolutionary hero Napoleon, intending to call the work Bonaparte. But after hearing that Napoleon had crowned himself emperor, Beethoven scratched out the honorary title, calling it instead Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the Memory of a Great Man. These circumstances have led to speculation about the identity of the “hero,” and some have suggested that the symphony is autobiographical. Particularly notable in the first movement is the seemingly premature entrance of the horn with the main theme before the beginning of the recapitulation, and the March funebre, depicting the funeral procession of the fallen hero, which represents the first use of the march in a symphony.

This was written by Molly Barnes, a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Department of Music. She wrote it for the program of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique conducted by John Eliot Gardiner in November 2011.

The most infrequently performed of his nine symphonies, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 has suffered comparative neglect. Positioned between the tremendously celebrated Symphonies Nos. 3 and 5, the work was depicted by Robert Schumann as “a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants.” Indeed, the work exhibits more stylistic similarities with Beethoven’s first two symphonies, which found inspiration in Haydn’s late symphonies. Beethoven composed the Fourth in 1806 and dedicated it to Count Franz von Oppersdorff, a Silesian nobleman related to Beethoven’s patron Prince Lichnowsky. The symphony opens with a slow introduction, whose stealthy, foreboding dissonances intensify anticipation of the lively and lyrical Allegro, marked by a notable “zigzag” principal theme. Of the Adagio, Berlioz said: “…only amongst the giants of poetic art can we find anything to compare with this sublime page of the giant of music.” The third movement playfully subverts our expectations of rhythm and meter, and the finale is a breathlessly energetic culmination alluding to melodies heard earlier in the symphony.

This was written by Molly Barnes, a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Department of Music. She wrote it for the program of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique conducted by John Eliot Gardiner in November 2011.

At the invitation of Italian choreographer and librettist Salvatore Viganò, Beethoven composed music for Viganò’s ballet Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus), premiered for Empress Maria Theresa at the Vienna Court Theater in 1801. Beethoven’s first work for the Viennese theater achieved instant public acclaim, yet the Overture is the only section of the ballet remaining in the active repertory. It portrays the myth of Prometheus, who was said to have produced two clay statues that became the human race, and who, against Zeus’s orders, stole fire to bequeath to humanity. Beethoven’s Overture begins dramatically with timpani strikes and dissonant chords, which lead into a noble Adagio appropriate to the “heroic-allegorical” subject. The subsequent Allegro section, characterized by a rapid, distinctive main theme in the strings, has been said to illustrate Prometheus’s flight from Olympus after stealing fire from the Chariot of the Sun. Along with the Egmont and Coriolan Overtures, the Prometheus Overture remains among Beethoven’s most enduring works for the stage.

This was written by Molly Barnes, a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Department of Music. She wrote it for the program of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique conducted by John Eliot Gardiner in November 2011.