Digest No. 2 From My Home Music Studio

[…]Beethoven had originally conceived of dedicating the symphony [Symphony No. 3] to Napoleon Bonaparte. The biographer Maynard Solomon relates that Beethoven admired the ideals of the French Revolution, and 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 considered giving the work the title of Bonaparte.

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 scratched the name Bonaparte out so violently with a knife that he created a hole in the paper.^[1] He later changed the title to Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d’un grand’uomo (“heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man”).[…]

I was inspired* by the changes of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, II, Adagio Assai (in other words, the second movement). After some cutting and re-arranging, I came up with the present form (of changes), sped up the tempo and turned it into an (attempt of) urban style music. I took Beethoven’s original title, “heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man” und turned it into In Memory of a Great Urban Man, in reference of the source for the idea and my change into urban music. As usual, arranged, recorded and performed in My Home Music Studio with Cubase, Sibelius, Reason, EWI, my Selmer Alto Sax, Keilwerth Tenor Sax and Yamaha P-60.

Check it out!

* I actually had this idea more than 20 years ago at which point I thought about arranging the whole melody in big band style, but that’s another story… In any case, I finally managed to put this to paper and record it.