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The Influence of Josef Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on Beethoven's Eroica Symphony

Solomon discusses the innovative features of the Eroica symphony, and does concede that some of these traits were “anticipated” by the late music of Haydn and Mozart. These innovations include, “the use of a new theme in the development section of the first movement, the employment of the winds for expressive rather than coloristic purposes, the introduction of a set of variations in the Finale and of a ‘Marcia funebre’ in the Adagio assai, and the use of three French horns for the first time in symphonic orchestration. More fundamentally, Beethoven style is now informed with a rhetorical fluidity and structural organicism that gives the symphony its sense of unfolding continuity and wholeness within a constant interplay of moods.”

The Theme of Death in the Eroica Symphony

Solomon also tells us that another unique characteristic of the Eroica symphony and the subsequent works is the “incorporation into musical form” the idea of “death, destructiveness, anxiety, and aggression as terrors to be transcended within the work of art itself.” This idea of transcending, or overcoming, as mentioned before, is central to the Heroic style.

Joseph Kerman, Alan Tyson, Scott G. Burnham, and Douglas Johnson paraphrased it nicely when they wrote that the manipulation of sonata form in a more “comprehensive” and “less formalistic” way was the most innovative feature of the Eroica Symphony.

Innovative Features of the Symphony

The combined innovations eventually caused people to label the Eroica Symphony a masterpiece. Heinrich Schenker, the man who laid the ground work for future structural analyses by musicologists, students, professors, professionals and amateurs, held up the Eroica as an example of just such a piece in his writings before his death in the 1930’s. In an article in the New York Times, Edward Rothstein examines Schenker’s assertions about the concept of a masterpiece and takes a specific look at the Eroica. Rothstein believes that the work can be labeled a masterpiece, but not for the harmonic or structural reasons Schenker sets forth. Instead, its value lies in the potential interpretation that can arise out of that harmonic language – and stresses that this is entirely objective and subject to culture (“complex cultural meanings grow out of abstract form,” as he puts it.)

Capstone on the Eroica Symphony

Regardless of one’s personal feelings about Beethoven’s third symphony, the fact that it is still discussed in one of the modern world’s largest newspapers is a testament to its power and impact on music almost two hundreds years after it was composed.

The length, breadth of ideas, scope, orchestration and use of instruments, the musical embodiment of death, the idea of overcoming, and the political and historical significance of the work as a representation of the enlightenment period and hence, French revolution, are respected and recognized throughout the world.