Beethoven And Napoleon

Beethoven as well as Napoleon ne'er saw each other. Yet they played their individual roles in the new "Romantic Age" apparent in Europe at the beginning of the 19th Century.

Beethoven, the independent composer of his period, rather liked some of the themes that Napoleon had. He had dealt to frame a strong new might with the will of the people, rather than that of the aristocracy whose lack of government as we would know it today was somewhat antique, and certainly did not involve one’s average citizen.

Napoleon modified the constabularies of the nation (very frequently); he restructured the Civil Service so that it was practical as well as being efficient; he got scientists from each fields functioning for him to bring France to a stage where it was technically the best in the world. He achieved much. His metric system is used in nearly all countries today. Most Europeans under 20 today would not realize a gallon or a yard. Litres and measures, with 10 or 100 increases are actually much better for your common chap (which the French universe was at the time) rather than getting to multiply by isolated fractions at which the French illiterate universe would be unfortunate.

A lot of masses say that the reason for this kind of thirst for scientific info was purely eleemosynary. Possibly Beethoven thought so before 1804. Others, perhaps more clear, showed that much of this work was put to almost purely military use. The man was a genius at warfare. Airing in mind the disruptive political climate after the French Revolution, the guillotine executions and the enormous strength of the Secret Police at the time, nobody dared say a thing. Napoleon just got on with it, on pain of destruction if it was not done.

Beethoven, meanwhile, had been seeing at the good things coming out of France, particularly during the ‘truce’ of the early 1800’s. He could see the things that Napoleon was doing for the nation and its infrastructure as well as its artistic side. Beethoven wrote other pieces during this period of time, but his Great Work’ at this time was the fantastically innovative ‘Eroica’ symphony.

This was devoted to Napoleon and, no doubt, much of the musical content was composed as a result of the successes of this unique leader.

However Napoleon, having re-armed his parades and ships during the ‘truce’ took his aspirations even further. He established himself an Emperor Moth and his family his successors in perpetuity. The Napoleonic Wars restarted and Beethoven was not pleased with this ‘would be’ hero.

Beethoven apparently tore out the dedication page of his holograph for the Third symphony, and simply dedicated it to lionize a “great man”, whilst renaming the philharmonic as we know it today as the ‘Eroica’, rather than ‘The Napoleon’.
In 1809 Napoleonic strengths bombarded Vienna, and Beethoven hid in a basement with mufflers round his ears frightened that the dreadful noise would remove the last of his remaining ability to hear.