PART I
Relayed from THE QUEEN'S HALL, LONDON
(Sole Lessees, Messrs. Chappell and Co., Ltd.)
THE B.B.C. SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
(Leader, ARTHUR CATTERALL )
Conducted by ERNEST ANSERMET
THE hero who first gave the Eroica ' Symphony its name, was, as everybody knows, Napoleon Bonaparte , and the idea of such a work is supposed to have been suggested to Beethoven by the Ambassador Bemadotte. It was completed in 1804, and a dedication to Napoleon stood on the title-page. The autograph copy in the Library at Vienna still bears the name of Bonaparte, but the published version is dedicated simply ' To the memory of a great man.' All the world knows how Beethoven made the change on hearing of Napoleon's adoption of the Imperial crown. It was a liberator of mankind that he had sought to honour, not one who was winning power and position for himself. Wagner, in one of his masterly essays, tells us that the main idea of its first movement is force, rising to titanic strength and even to the violence of a destroyer. In the second movement this force is tamed by deep grief, and in the third, chastened by its own deep sorrow, it appears as buoyant gaiety. The last movement, Wagner considers, shows to us the man harmoniously at one with himself.