Beethoven’s Funeral March for Napoleon from Sinfonia Eroica

One of the composer’s most celebrated works, the Eroica symphony is a large-scale composition that marked the beginning of Beethoven’s innovative middle period. The second movement is a funeral march in the ternary form (A–B–A) that is typical of 18th-century funeral marches, albeit one that is “large and amply developed“ and in which the principal theme has the functions of a refrain as in rondo form.  Musically, the thematic solemnity of the second movement has lent itself for use as a funeral march, proper. The movement is between 14 and 18 minutes long. The opening A-section in C minor begins with the march theme in the strings, then in the winds. A second theme in the relative major (E♭) quickly returns to minor tonality, and these materials are developed throughout the rest of the section. This eventually gives way to a brief B-section in C major “for what may be called the Trio of the March“, which Beethoven unusually calls attention to by marking “Maggiore“ (major) in the score. At this point, the traditional “bounds of ceremonial propriety“ would normally indicate a da capo return to the A theme. However, the first theme in C minor begins modulating in the sixth bar , leading to a fugue in F minor based on an inversion of the original second theme. The first theme reappears briefly in G minor in the strings , followed by a stormy development passage (“a shocking fortissimo plunge“).  A full re-statement of the first theme in the original key then begins in the oboe . The coda begins with a marching motif in the strings that was earlier heard in the major section   and eventually ends with a final soft statement of the main theme that “crumbles into short phrases interspersed with silences“ Info: (Beethoven) Video: #Napoleon #Beethoven #Eroica