Program Notes Beethoven’s Eroica
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55 (“Eroica,” 1802-04)
by Ludwig van Beethoven (Bonn, 1770 – Vienna, 1827)
Beethoven’s Third Symphony represents a quantum leap within the composer’s oeuvre as it does in the history of music in general. The sheer size of the work—almost twice the length of the average 18th-century symphony—was a novelty, to say nothing of what amounted to a true revolution in musical technique and, even more importantly, in musical expression.
Music had never before expressed the idea of struggle in such a striking way. Beethoven’s encroaching deafness is surely part of the reason why that idea took center stage in the composer’s thinking at the time, and it is fair to assume that his physical affliction had more than a little to do with the spectacular change that Beethoven’s style underwent in what would eventually be called his “heroic” period. Yet in the case of the Third Symphony, the personal crisis was compounded by the dramatic political events of the day, and in particular by Beethoven’s ambivalent relationship with the leading political figure of the era—Napoleon Bonaparte.
Beethoven was at the impressionable age of 18 when the French Revolution broke out, and his letters from the 1790s attest to his support of the republican cause. Like many intellectuals of his time, he was fascinated by the reforms Napoleon introduced as First Consul. At the same time, he despised tyranny in all its forms, and when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor, he felt that the ideals of the revolution had been betrayed. He had planned to dedicate his new symphony to Bonaparte, but, according to the well-known story, he flew into a wild rage when he heard the news of the coronation. He tore up the title page, replacing the dedication with a new inscription that was more impersonal but also more universal: Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il Sovvenire di un grand Uomo, or “Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.”
The Third Symphony proceeds from intense drama to the final victory. The opening “Allegro con brio” is Beethoven’s longest symphony movement aside from the finale of the Ninth. In it, some of the basic procedures of Classical sonata form (presentation and transformation of themes; traversal of various keys before a return to the initial tonality) are carried to a point where they take on an entirely new meaning: they become elements of a drama of unprecedented intensity. The themes are shorter than in most earlier symphonies and more open-ended, lending themselves particularly well to modifications of various sorts. It is by transforming, dismembering and reintegrating his motifs that Beethoven expresses the idea of struggle that is so unmistakably present throughout this movement.
The second movement bears the title Marcia funebre (“Funeral March”). The music begins softly and rises to a powerful, dramatic climax. After some extensive contrapuntal development in the middle of the movement, the main theme’s final return is interrupted by rests after every three or four notes, as if the violins were so overcome by grief that they could barely play the melody.
In the third and fourth movements, Beethoven managed to ease the feeling of tragedy without letting the tension subside. The third-movement Scherzo begins with two notes repeated in an undertone that evolve into a theme only gradually. In the somewhat more relaxed Trio, the three horns take center stage.
The main theme of the last movement appears in no fewer than four of Beethoven’s compositions. We first hear it in a simple contra-dance for orchestra, then in the last movement of the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus (both in 1800-01), followed by the Variations for Piano, Op. 35 (1802), and lastly, in the Third Symphony. The elaborate set of variations in the “Eroica” finale are integrated into a single, continuous musical progression. There is a minor-key variation with a distinct Hungarian flavor, and another one that turns the contra-dance theme into a slow aria. An enormous crescendo leads to the short Presto section that ends the symphony.
The Ordering of Moses (1937)
by R. Nathaniel Dett (Drummondville, Ontario, Canada [now part of Niagara Falls], 1882 – Battle Creek, Michigan, 1943)
Pianist, choral director and composer, R. Nathaniel Dett was as prominent and highly regarded as an African American classical musician could be in the first half of the 20th century. He led the singers of Virginia’s Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) on a triumphant European tour, was friends with the phenomenal Australian American pianist-composer Percy Grainger, and had his magnum opus, the oratorio The Ordering of Moses, performed by the Cincinnati Symphony and Chorus, under music director Eugene Goossens, in 1937. (The live radio broadcast was interrupted in the middle, probably because callers had protested against a Black composer’s work being on the air.) The work was subsequently neglected for many years, until the Cincinnati Symphony, under James Conlon, revived and recorded it in 2014.
The Ordering of Moses was written when Dett, after many years of service at Hampton, returned to school to earn a master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. An Oberlin graduate who had also studied at Harvard as well as with the legendary Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau outside Paris, Dett was a lifelong learner. In this unique work, he achieved a perfect synthesis between the previously unconnected worlds of the Negro spiritual and the European oratorio tradition.
The oratorio is divided into fifteen movements, performed without pause. The orchestral introduction opens with a cello solo quoting the main motif of the spiritual “Go Down, Moses.” Both the spiritual and the cello as a solo instrument will play a central role throughout the work–the cello used to connect the various sections and to offer personal commentary on the events as they unfold.
This long-forgotten work has astonished its 21st-century listeners by its vibrant energy, its powerful vocal writing, and its sophisticated harmonic language. The part of Moses was written for a heroic tenor, the voice of God for a sonorous basso profondo. Miriam is a dramatic soprano who must hit an operatic high C, while the alto soloist, representing the children of Israel, plumbs the depths of her range in her lament early in the oratorio. The magnificent choral fugue on “Go down, Moses,” the dramatic orchestral movement depicting the Egyptians pursuing the Israelites, and Miriam’s song of thanksgiving with its Middle Eastern coloring, are just a few of the many memorable moments in the piece. All in all, The Ordering of Moses is not only a landmark work in the history of Black music, but a masterpiece of 20th-century choral music in general.
THE WORD – BARITONE SOLO AND CHORUS
All Israel’s children sorely sighed;
And unto God they sorely cried.
‘Neath Egypt’s king they hard were tried;
By reason of their bondage.
VOICE OF ISRAEL – ALTO SOLO
O Lord, behold my affliction;
My heart is turned within me;
A darkening cloud is Thy anger.
Thy hand is hard against me.
My eyes and heart fall grieving;
I walk alone in deep shadows.
Oppressed and sighed in her mourning.
Zion sighed in her mourning. O Lord!
CHORUS
O Lord!
SOPRANO, ALTO, BARITONE SOLOS
God looked on Israel and heard her children groaning.
He looked on her children groaning and had respect unto her.
God looked on Israel and had respect unto her.
CHORUS
God looked on Israel and heard her children groaning.
Mercy, Lord!
And from a burning bush, flaming, God spake unto Moses:
Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land;
Tell Pharaoh: “Let my people go!”
Thou shalt lead thy people to the promised land.
Go down, Take thy rod in thy hand,
Thou shalt lead thy people to the promised land.
For I have looked on Israel
and have heard her children groaning,
And I have respect unto her.
“Go down, Let my people go!”
VOICE OF MOSES – TENOR SOLO
Lord, who am I to go unto Pharaoh,
and why should I lead children to Israel?
How shall they know Thou sendest me?
What name shall I say unto them?
What signs or wonders show?
I am not eloquent, have no gift of speech,
Am slow of tongue!
CHORUS
And God spake unto Moses saying:
VOICE OF GOD – BARITONE SOLO
Who hath made a man dumb?
Or who hath made his mouth speak?
Is it not I, Jehovah?
Now therefore go!
CHORUS
Jehovah! God of your fathers?
Now therefore go down, and I will be thy mouth;
I will instruct thee what thou shalt say.
Now therefore go!
THE WORD
And when Moses smote the water,
The children all passed over,
When Moses smote the water,
the sea gave way!
CHORUS
And when Moses smote the water,
The children all passed over
When Moses smote the water,
The sea gave way!
Rejoice, children, and be glad,
The sea gave way!
THE WORD
And when they reached the other shore,
They sang a song of triumph o’er.
MOSES
I will praise Jehovah for he has triumphed gloriously,
The horse and his rider he has o’erthrown in the midst of the sea!
He is my God and I will praise Him;
He has become the rock of my salvation.
CHORUS
O hallelujah, hallelujah!
Hallelujah, Let us praise Jehovah!
Praise the Lord!
THE WORD
Then did the women of Israel
Gather with timbrels and dances;
And Miriam gifted with prophecy,
Answered exhorting then, saying:
MIRIAM
Come, let us praise Jehovah,
For his triumph is glorious,
The clouds and fire are his chariots,
The winds and waves obey him;
Now all the armies of Pharaoh are sunk as stones in deep waters.
The deeps stood up as the mountains
When thou didst blow thy breath upon them!
CHORUS
Hallelujah!
MOSES
Sing ye to Jehovah, for he has triumphed gloriously.
CHORUS
Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power;
Pharaoh’s hosts thou hast cast in the depths of the sea!
MOSES
Sing ye praise to Jehovah; Sing ye!
CHORUS
He is King of Kings, He is Lord of Lords!
Praise Jehovah, Sing together,
Praise Jehovah, Great God of our Fathers;
God the Great, I Am that I Am!
Hallelujah, God the Great, I Am that I Am!
Hallelujah, He is a Man of war.
He is a Man of war, mighty is Jehovah,
Mighty in battle, He has overthrown his foes.
Hallelujah! Praise Jehovah, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!
Mighty is Jehovah, Mighty in battle.
No God doth wonders like Him.
O sing to Jehovah, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord;
Sing to Jehovah, Praise the Lord.
Great I Am that I Am, Praise the Lord.
Hallelujah, Sing to Jehovah,
Whose right hand is our salvation,
O praise the Lord,
Sing unto Him who hath triumphed.
MOSES & MIRIAM
O praise ye, praise ye Jehovah,
Praise His holy name!
MOSES
I will sing unto Jehovah,
For he has triumphed gloriously.
Jehovah is my strength and my song.
He is my God and I will praise Him.
Thou, Lord, in thy loving kindness
Hast led the people, whom Thou hast redeemed!
Jehovah shall reign forever!
MIRIAM:
The horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea,
And he is become my salvation.
My father’s God and I will exalt Him.
Jehovah shall reign forever!
CHORUS
He is King of kings and He is Lord of Lords;
Sing together, Praise Jehovah.
Great God of our Fathers;
Praise the Great I Am that I Am, Hallelujah.
King of kings and Lord of Lords Praise His holy name.
Mighty is Jehovah, Mighty in battle!
He has triumphed o’er His foes.
O praise Him, Mighty in battle,
No God doth wonders like him.
Praise the Lord, Sing to Jehovah,
Great I Am that I Am, Praise the Lord.
Hallelujah! Sing to Jehovah whose right hand is our salvation, Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord, Hallelujah! Praise the Great I Am.