ments of Napoleon's character, the great composer dedicated to him one of his greatest symphonies. This symphony, Number 3, Opus 55, has been regarded by some as "an attempt to draw a musical portrait of a historical character,—a great statesman, a great general, a noble individual; to represent in music, Beethoven's language, what Thiers has given in words, and Delaroche in painting."
One writer has said of this symphony: "It wants no title to tell its meaning, for throughout the symphony the hero is visibly portrayed." Such views as these concerning any music are rather far-fetched. We doubt if this same writer would have associated a hero with this symphony on his first hearing of it if he had not previously been educated to the fact that it represented the heroic in music. If a hero can be pictured in music, so can a scoundrel; if these, then a saint, a sinner.
However, if the hint is given, then we can see massiveness and strength in the music that we may parallel in our own minds to our ideal of a hero. But without this hint, this massiveness and grandeur may just as well portray a chain of lofty mountains rearing their snowcapped tops in majesty above the surrounding scene.
We doubt if Beethoven intended or expected his music to represent to the hearer a concrete hero. When he wished concrete images to come to the mind of his hearers he did not depend on music to fulfil this errand, so foreign to its mission, but wrote, in so many words, the scene or idea that he wished to be in the listener's mind as he heard the music. For proof of this see the annotations affixed to the various movements of the "Pastoral" (sixth) symphony, and, somewhat similar, the "Farewell, Absence and Return" sonata.
But, undoubtedly, as much of the heroic as can be expressed in music, Beethoven has given us in this "Heroic" symphony. It is not a hero, but the heroic, that he portrayed, that he could portray in music; the large, the grand, the massive.
