Today In History. What Happened This Day In History

 

 

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

Today in History
May 20

325		The Ecumenical council is inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea.
1303		A peace treaty is signed between England and France.
1347		Cola di Rienzo takes the title of tribune in Rome.
1520		Hernando Cortes defeats Spanish troops sent against him in Mexico.
1690		England passes the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II.
1674		John Sobieski becomes Poland’s first king.
1774		Parliament passes the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts close the port of Boston.
1775		North Carolina becomes the first colony to declare its independence.
1784		The Peace of Versailles ends a war between France, England, and Holland.
1799		Napoleon Bonaparte orders a withdrawal from his siege of St. Jean d’Acre in Egypt.
1859		A force of Austrians collide with Piedmontese cavalry at the village of Montebello, in northern Italy.
1861		North Carolina becomes the last state to secede from the Union.
1862		President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West.
1874		Levi Strauss begins marketing blue jeans with copper rivets.
1902		The U.S. military occupation of Cuba ends.
1927		Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York for Paris.
1930		The first airplane is catapulted from a dirigible.
1932		Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Ireland, to become the first woman fly solo across the Atlantic.
1939		Pan American Airways starts the first regular passenger service across the Atlantic.
1941		Germany invades Crete by air.
1942		Japan completes the conquest of Burma.
1951		During the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara becomes the first jet air ace in history.
1961		A white mob attacks civil rights activists in Montgomery, Alabama.
1969		In South Vietnam, troops of the 101st Airborne Division reach the top of Hill 937 after nine days of fighting entrenched North Vietnamese forces.
1970		100,000 people march in New York, supporting U.S. policies in Vietnam.
Born on May 20
1663		William Bradford, printer.
1750		Stephen Girard, American financier and philanthropist.
1768		Dolley Madison, first lady of President James Madison.
1799		Honore de Balzac, French novelist (The Human Comedy, Lost Illusions).
1806		John Stuart Mill, British philospher and economist.
1818		William George Fargo, one of the founders of Wells, Fargo & Co.
1882		Sigrid Undset, Norwegian novelist (Kristin Lavransdatter).
1908		Jimmy Stewart, actor (It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr Smith Goes to Washington).

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Today In History. What Happened This Day In History

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

Today in History
March 20

1413		Henry IV of England is succeed by his son Henry V.
1739		In India, Nadir Shah of Persia occupies Delhi and takes possession of the Peacock throne.
1760		The Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings.
1792		In Paris, the Legislative Assembly approves the use of the guillotine.
1815		Napoleon Bonaparte enters Paris and begins his 100-day rule.
1841		Edgar Allen Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, considered the first detective story, is published.
1852		Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.
1906		Army officers in Russia mutiny at Sevastopol.
1915		The French call off the Champagne offensive on the Western Front.
1918		The Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union ask for American aid to rebuild their army.
1922		President Warren G. Harding orders U.S. troops back from the Rhineland.
1932		The German dirigible, Graf Zepplin, makes the first flight to South America on regular schedule.
1939		President Franklin D. Roosevelt names William O. Douglas to the Supreme Court.
1940		The British Royal Air Force conducts an all-night air raid on the Nazi airbase at Sylt, Germany.
1943		The Allies attack Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s forces on the Mareth Line in North Africa.
1965		President Lyndon B. Johnson orders 4,000 troops to protect the Selma-Montgomery civil rights marchers.
1969		Senator Edward Kennedy calls on the United States to close all bases in Taiwan.
1976		Patty Hearst is convicted of armed robbery.
1982		U.S. scientists return from Antarctica with the first land mammal fossils found there.
1987		The United State approves AZT, a drug that is proven to slow the progress of AIDS.
Born on March 20
43BC		Ovid, Roman poet.
1811		Napoleon II, son of Napoleon Bonaparte, Duke of Reichstadt.
1828		Henrik Isben, Norwegian dramatist (Peer Gynt, Hedda Gabler).
1904		B.F. Skinner, American psychologist.
1917		Dame Vera Lynn , British singer.
1922		Raymond Walter Goulding, Radio comedian of Bob and Ray fame.
1925		John Ehrlichman, White House advisor to President Nixon.
1928		Fred Rogers, television performer (Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood).
1957		Shelton ‘Spike’ Lee, film director (Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X).

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Today In History. What Happened This Day In History

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

Today in History
March 17

1766		Britain repeals the Stamp Act.
1776		British forces evacuate from Boston to Nova Scotia.
1799		Napoleon Bonaparte and his army reach Mediterranean seaport of St. Jean d’Acra, only to find British warships ready to break his siege of the town.
1868		The first postage stamp canceling machine patent is issued.
1884		John Joseph Montgomery makes the first glider flight in Otay, Calif.
1886		Twenty African Americans are killed in the Carrollton Massacre in Mississippi.
1891		The British steamer Utopia sinks off the coast of Gibraltar.
1905		Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, marries Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York.
1910		The Camp Fire Girls are founded in Lake Sebago, Maine.
1914		Russia increases the number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000.
1924		Four Douglas army aircraft leave Los Angeles for an around the world flight.
1930		Mob boss Al Capone is released from jail.
1942		The Nazis begin deporting Jews to the Belsen camp.
1944		The U.S. Eighth Air Force bombs Vienna.
1959		The Dalai Lama flees Tibet and goes to India.
1961		The United States increases military aid and technicians to Laos.
1962		The Soviet Union asks the United States to pull out of South Vietnam.
1966		A U.S. submarine locates a missing H-bomb in the Mediterranean.
1970		The Army charges 14 officers with suppression of facts in the My Lai massacre case.
1972		Nixon asks Congress to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation.
1973		Twenty are killed in Cambodia when a bomb goes off that was meant for the Cambodian President Lon Nol.
1973		First POWs are released from the “Hanoi Hilton” in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
1985		President Ronald Reagan agrees to a joint study with Canada on acid rain.
1992		White South Africans approve constitutional reforms giving legal equality to blacks.
Born on March 17
1828		Patrick R. Cleburne, Confederate general.
1832		Daniel Conway Moncure, U.S. clergyman, author, abolitionist
1846		Kate Greenway, painter and illustrator (Mother Goose).
1902		Bobby Jones, American golfer.
1919		Nat “King” Cole, American jazz pianist and singer.

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Today In History. What Happened This Day In History: March 9, 2015

Today In History. What Happened This Day In History

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

Today in History
March 9

1617		The Treaty of Stolbovo ends the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.
1734		The Russians take Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland.
1788		Connecticut becomes the 5th state.
1796		Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais in Paris, France.
1812		Swedish Pomerania is seized by Napoleon.
1820		Congress passes the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.
1839		The French Academy of Science announces the Daguerreotype photo process.
1841		The rebel slaves who seized a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, in 1839 are freed by the Supreme Court despite Spanish demands for extradition.
1862		The first and last battle between the ironclads U.S.S. Monitor and C.S.S. Virginia ends in a draw.
1864		General Ulysses Grant is appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.
1911		The funding for five new battleships is added to the British military defense budget.
1915		The Germans take Grondno on the Eastern Front.
1916		Mexican bandit Pancho Villa leads 1,500 horsemen on a raid of Columbus, N.M. killing 17 U.S. soldiers and citizens.
1932		Eamon De Valera is elected president of the Irish Free State and pledges to abolish all loyalty to the British Crown.
1936		The German press warns that all Jews who vote in the upcoming elections will be arrested.
1939		Czech President Emil Hacha ousts pro-German Joseph Tiso as the Premier of Slovakia in order to preserve Czech unity.
1940		Britain frees captured Italian coal ships on the eve of German Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop’s visit to Rome.
1956		British authorities arrest and deport Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus. He is accused of supporting terrorists.
1957		Egyptian leader Nasser bars U.N. plans to share the tolls for the use of the Suez Canal.
1959		The Barbie doll is unveiled at a toy fair in New York City.
1964		The first Ford Mustang rolls off the Ford assembly line.
1967		Svetlana Alliluyeva, Josef Stalin’s daughter defects to the United States.
1968		General William Westmoreland asks for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam.
1975		Iraq launches an offensive against the rebellious Kurds.
1986		Navy divers find the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts.
Born on March 9
1451		Amerigo Vespucci, Italian navigator.
1824		Leland Stanford, railroad builder, founder of Stanford University.
1890		Vyacheslav Molotov, former Soviet Prime Minister.
1892		Vita Sackville-West, writer.
1905		Peter Quennell, biographer.
1910		Samuel Barber, American composer (“Adagio for Strings,” Vanessa).
1918		Frank Morrison Spillane [Mickey Spillane], crime writer (Kiss Me, Deadly, The Erection Set).
1930		Ornette Coleman, jazz saxophonist.
1934		Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, the first man to orbit the Earth.
1943		Bobby Fischer, first American world chess champion.
1947		Keri Hulme, New Zealand novelist (The Bone People).

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Today In History: What Happened This Day In History (Tuesday, February 10, 2015)

Today In History. What Happened This Day In History

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

February 10

1258		Huegu, a Mongol leader, seizes Baghdad, bringing and end to the Abbasid caliphate.
1620		Supporters of Marie de Medici, the queen mother, who has been exiled to Blois, are defeated by the king’s troops at Ponts de Ce, France.
1763		The Treaty of Paris ends the French-Indian War. France gives up all her territories in the New World except New Orleans and a few scattered islands.
1799		Napoleon Bonaparte leaves Cairo, Egypt, for Syria, at the head of 13,000 men.
1814		Napoleon personally directs lightning strikes against enemy columns advancing toward Paris, beginning with a victory over the Russians at Champaubert.
1840		Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert.
1846		Led by religious leader Brigham Young, the first Mormons begin a long westward exodus from Nauvoo, Il., to Utah.
1863		P.T. Barnum’s star midgets, Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, are married.
1904		Russia and Japan declare war on each other.
1915		President Wilson blasts the British for using the U.S. flag on merchant ships to deceive the Germans.
1939		Japanese occupy island of Hainan in French Indochina.
1941		London severs diplomatic relations with Romania.
1941		Iceland is attacked by German planes.
1942		The war halts civilian car production at Ford.
1945		B-29s hit the Tokyo area.
1955		Bell Aircraft displays a fixed-wing vertical takeoff plane.
1960		Adolph Coors, the beer brewer, is kidnapped in Golden, Colo.
1966		Protester David Miller is convicted of burning his draft card.
1979		The Metropolitan Museum announces the first major theft in 110-year history, $150,000 Greek marble head.
1986		The largest Mafia trial in history, with 474 defendants, opens in Palermo, Italy.
Born on February 10
1890		Boris Pasternak, Russian novelist and poet (Dr. Zhivago).  (Listen to Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pastenak on euzicasa! just click on the shortcut above!)
1893		Jimmy Durante, American comedian and film actor.
1894		Harold MacMillan, British prime minister (1957-1963).
1897		John F. Enders, virologist.
1898		Bertolt Brecht, German poet and dramatist (The Threepenny Opera).
1901		Stella Adler, actress and teacher.
1902		Walter Brattain, physicist, one of the inventors of the transistor.
1910		Dominique Georges Pire, Belgian cleric and educator.
1914		Larry Adler, harmonica virtuoso.
1920		Alex Comfort, English physician and author (Joy of Sex).
1927		(Mary Violet) Leontyne Price, opera singer.

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Today In History: What Happened This Day In History

Today In History. What Happened This Day In History

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

Today in History
January 7

1327		King Edward II of England is deposed.
1558		The French, under the Duke of Guise, finally take the port of Calais from the English.
1785		Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American Dr. John Jeffries make the first crossing of the English Channel in a hydrogen balloon.
1807		Responding to Napoleon Bonaparte’s attempted blockade of the British Isles, the British blockade Continental Europe.
1865		Cheyenne and Sioux warriors attack Julesburg, Colo., in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre.
1901		New York stock exchange trading exceeds two million shares for the first time in history.
1902		Imperial Court of China returns to Peking. The Empress Dowager resumes her reign.
1918		The Germans move 75,000 troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front.
1934		Six thousand pastors in Berlin defy the Nazis insisting that they will not be silenced.
1944		The U.S. Air Force announces the production of the first jet-fighter, Bell P-59 Airacomet.
1945		U.S. air ace Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. is killed in the Pacific.
1952		French forces in Indochina launch Operation Violette in an effort to push Viet Minh forces away from the town of Ba Vi.
1955		Marian Anderson becomes the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House.
1975		Vietnamese troops take Phuoc Binh in new full-scale offensive.
1979		Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge are overthrown when Vietnamese troops seize the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.
1980		US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation providing $1.5 billion in loans to salvage Chrysler Corporation.
1985		Vietnam seizes the Khmer National Liberation Front headquarters near the Thai border.
1985		Japan launches its first interplanetary spacecraft, Sakigake, the first deep space probe launched by any nation other than the US or the USSR.
1989		Prince Akihito sworn in as Emperor of Japan, following the death of his father, Hirohito.
1990		Safety concerns over structural problems force the Leaning Tower of Pisa to be closed to the public.
1993		The Bosnian Army carries out a surprise attack on the village of Kravica in Srebrenica during the Bosnian War.
1999		The impeachment trial of US President Bill Clinton opens in the US Senate.
Born on January 7
1718		Israel Putnam, American Revolutionary War hero.
1745		Etienne Montgolfier, French inventor who, with his brother, launched the first successful hot-air balloon.
1800		Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States.
1845		Louis III, last King of Bavaria.
1911		Butterfly McQueen (Thelma McQueen), actress best known for her role as Scarlett O’Hara’s maid Prissy in Gone with the Wind (1939); won Daytime Emmy portraying Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother in “The Seven Wishes of Joanna Peabody,” an ABC Afterschool Special.
1912		Charles Addams, cartoonist, creator of the Addams Family.
1922		Jean-Pierre Rampal, flautist.
1930		Jack Greene, country singer, musician; won Country Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year for “There Goes My Everything” (1967).
1939		Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark.
1948		Kenny Loggins, singer, songwriter; half of Loggins and Messina duo.
1957		Katie Couric, journalist, author; has hosted news and talk shows on all three major TV networks.

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Today In History: What Happened This Day In History

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this

day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

September 14
1146		Zangi of the Near East is murdered. The Sultan Nur ad-Din, his son, pursues the conquest of Edessa.
1321		Dante Alighieri dies of malaria just hours after finishing writing Paradiso.
1544		Henry VIII’s forces take Boulogne, France.
1773		Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov successfully storm a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey.
1791		Louis XVI swears his allegiance to the French constitution.
1812		Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia reaches its climax as his Grande Armee enters Moscow–only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained.
1814		Francis Scott Key writes the words to the “Star Spangled Banner” as he waits aboard a British launch in the Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
1847		U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott capture Mexico City, virtually bringing the two-year Mexican War to a close.
1853		The Allies land at Eupatoria on the west coast of Crimea.
1862		At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, Maryland Union troops smash into the Confederates as they close in on what will become the Antietam battleground.
1901		Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th President of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was shot eight days earlier.
1911		Russian Premier Piotr Stolypin is mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at the Kiev opera house.
1943		German troops abandon the Salerno front in Italy..
1960		Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia form OPEC.
1966		Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong.
1975		Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first native-born American saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
1979		Nur Muhammad Taraki, president and former prime minister of Afghanistan, is assassinated in a coup in which prime minister Hafizullah Amin seizes power.
1982		Bachir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, is killed along with 26 others in a bomb blast in Beirut.
1984		Joe Kittinger, a former USAF fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, becomes the first person to pilot a gas balloon solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1994		Major League Baseball players strike over a salary cap and other proposed changes, forcing the cancellation of the entire postseason and the World Series.
2007		Northern Rock Bank suffers the UK’s first bank run in 150 years.
Born on September 14
1769		Baron Freidrich von Humbolt, German naturalist and explorer who made the first isothermic and isobaric maps.
1849		Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist who studied dogs’ responsiveness.
1860		Hamlin Garland, author who wrote about the Midwest in novles such as A Son of the Middle Border and The Book of the American Indian.
1864		Lord Robert Cecil, one of the founders of the League of Nations and its president from 1923 to 1945.
1867		Charles Dana Gibson, illustrator, creator of the ‘Gibson Girl.’
1879		Margaret Sanger, birth-control advocate and founder of Planned Parenthood.
1898		Hal B. Wallis, film producer (The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca).
1921		Constance Baker Motley, first African-American woman to be appointed a federal judge.
1930		Allan Bloom, writer (The Closing of the American Mind).
1934		Kate Millet, feminist writer, author of Sexual Politics.
1936		Ferid Murad, Albanian-American physician and pharmacologist, is co-winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on nitroglycerin’s effects the cardiovascular system.
1948		Marc Reisner, author and environmentalist best known for his book Cadillac Desert, a history of water management in the Western portion of the US.
1955		Geraldine Brooks, Australian-American journalist and author; her novel March won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2005).
1961		Wendy Thomas (Melinda “Wendy” Thomas Morse), namesake, mascot and spokesperson for the Wendy’s chain of fast-food restaurants.
1983		Amy Winehouse, singer-songwriter; her five Grammy wins (out of six nominations) for her Back to Black album (2006) tied the existing record for most wins by a female artist in a single night; won Brit Award for Best British Female Artist (2007).

 

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Happy 4Th of July! Beethoven – Symphony No 3 Eroica – Karajan, PS, May 1944 [Legendary Recordings LR005]

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, also known as “Eroica” (Italian for “Heroic”), is a symphony in four movements composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. This symphony, is a musical work marking the full arrival of the composer’s “middle-period”, a series of unprecedented large scale works of emotional depth and structural rigor.^[1][2]

Beethoven – Egmont Overture, Op.84

Egmont, Op. 84, by Ludwig van Beethoven, is a set of incidental music pieces for the 1787 play of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.^[1] It consists of an overture followed by a sequence of nine additional pieces for soprano, male narrator and full symphony orchestra. (The male narrator is optional; he is not used in the play, and he does not appear in all recordings of the complete incidental music.) Beethoven wrote it between October 1809 and June 1810, and it was premiered on 15 June 1810.

Beethoven: Symphony No.3, “Eroica”: Paavo Jarvi, conductor, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

Beethoven: Symphony No.3 in E flat, Op.55, “Eroica” 
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
Paavo Jarvi, dir.
0:01 I. Allegro con brio
16:00 II. Marcia funebre: Adagio assai
28:52 III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace – Trio
35:26 IV. Finale: Allegro molto – Poco andante – Presto

From Wikipedia: “Ludwig van Beethoven‘s Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (Op. 55), also known as the Eroica (Italian for “heroic”), is a musical work marking the full arrival of the composer’s “middle-period,” a series of unprecedented large scale works of emotional depth and structural rigor.^[1][2]

The symphony is widely regarded as a mature expression of the classical style of the late eighteenth century that also exhibits defining features of the romantic style that would hold sway in the nineteenth century. The Third was begun immediately after the Second, completed in August 1804, and first performed 7 April 1805.^[3]

Dedication and premiere

Beethoven had originally conceived of dedicating the symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte. The biographer Maynard Solomon relates that Beethoven admired the ideals of the French Revolution, and viewed Napoleon as their embodiment. In the autumn the composer began to have second thoughts about that dedication. It would have deprived him of a fee that he would receive if he instead dedicated the symphony to Prince Franz Joseph Maximillian Lobkowitz. Nevertheless, he still gave the work the title of Bonaparte.

According to Beethoven’s pupil and assistant, Ferdinand Ries, when Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor of the French in May 1804, Beethoven became disgusted and went to the table where the completed score lay. He took hold of the title-page and tore it up in rage. This is the account of the scene as told by Ries:

“

In writing this symphony Beethoven had been thinking of Buonaparte, but Buonaparte while he was First Consul. At that time Beethoven had the highest esteem for him and compared him to the greatest consuls of ancient Rome. Not only I, but many of Beethoven’s closer friends, saw this symphony on his table, beautifully copied in manuscript, with the word “Buonaparte” inscribed at the very top of the title-page and “Ludwig van Beethoven” at the very bottom. …I was the first to tell him the news that Buonaparte had declared himself Emperor, whereupon he broke into a rage and exclaimed, “So he is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, he will tread under foot all the rights of man, indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men, become a tyrant!” Beethoven went to the table, seized the top of the title-page, tore it in half and threw it on the floor. The page had to be re-copied and it was only now that the symphony received the title “Sinfonia eroica.”[4]

”

There exists also the copy of the score made by a copyist, where the 

The Eroica Symphony Title Page, showing the erased dedication to Napoleon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

words Intitulata Bonaparte (‘dedicated to Bonaparte’) are scratched out, but four lines below that were later added in pencil the words Geschriben auf Bonaparte (‘written in honor of Bonaparte’). Further, in August 1804, merely three months after the legendary tearing-up scene, Beethoven wrote to his publisher that “The title of the symphony is really Bonaparte.” The final title that was applied to the work when it was first published in October, 1806, was Sinfonia Eroica…composta per festeggiare il sovvenire di un grand Uomo (“heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man”).^[5] In addition, Schindler tells us that upon hearing of the Emperor’s death in Saint Helena in 1821, Beethoven proclaimed “I wrote the music for this sad event seventeen years ago” – referring to the Funeral March (second movement).

Beethoven wrote most of the symphony in late 1803 and completed it in early 1804. The symphony was premiered privately in summer 1804 in his patron Prince Lobkowitz‘s castle Eisenberg (Jezeri) in Bohemia. The first public performance was given in Vienna‘s Theater an der Wien on 7 April 1805 with the composer conducting. For that performance, the work’s key was announced as “Dis“, the German for D-sharp.^[6]

Musical characteristics and uniqueness

The work is a milestone in the history of the classical symphony for a number of reasons. The piece is about twice as long as symphonies by Haydn or Mozart—the first movement alone is almost as long as many Classical symphonies, if the exposition repeat is observed. The work covers more emotional ground than earlier works had, and is often cited as the beginning of the Romantic period in music.^[7] The second movement, in particular, displays a great range of emotion, from the misery of the main funeral march theme, to the relative solace of happier, major key episodes. The finale of the symphony shows a similar range, and is given an importance in the overall scheme which was virtually unheard of previously^[7] —whereas in earlier symphonies, the finale was a quick and breezy finishing off, here it is a lengthy set of variations and fugue on a theme Beethoven had originally written for his ballet music The Creatures of Prometheus.

Beethoven Egmont Overture Bernstein Vienna Philharmonic

Excerpts: “Egmont, Op. 84, by Ludwig van Beethoven, is a set of incidental music pieces for the 1787 play of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It consists of an overture followed by a sequence of nine additional pieces for soprano, male narrator and full symphony orchestra. (The male narrator is optional; he is not used in the play, and he does not appear in all recordings of the complete incidental music.) Beethoven wrote it between October 1809 and June 1810, and it was premiered on 15 June 1810.

The subject of the music and dramatic narrative is the life and heroism of a 16th-century Flemish nobleman, the Count of Egmont. It was composed during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, at a time when the French Empire had extended its domination over most of Europe. Beethoven had famously expressed his great outrage over Napoleon Bonaparte’s decision to crown himself Emperor in 1804, furiously scratching out his name in the dedication of the Eroica Symphony. In the music for Egmont, Beethoven expressed his own political concerns through the exaltation of the heroic sacrifice of a man condemned to death for having taken a valiant stand against oppression. The Overture later became an unofficial anthem of the1956 Hungarian revolution.

The music was greeted with eulogistic praise, in particular by E.T.A. Hoffmann for its poetry, and Goethe himself declared that Beethoven had expressed his intentions with “a remarkable genius”.

The overture, powerful and expressive, is one of the last works of his middle period; it has become as famous a composition as the Coriolan Overture, and is in a similar style to the Fifth Symphony, which he had completed two years earlier.”
(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egmont_(Beethoven))