Beethoven - "Wellington's Victory"

[Dave2002]

Curious history for this piece, played on R3 just now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington%27s_Victory

I guess I agree with this self assessment by LvB - "What I shit is better than anything you could ever think up!"

He wasn't always very modest though.

Do we have any feeling for what Beethoven actually felt about Wellington's victory? We know that earlier he had admired Napoleon - but that was before he started to have a dislike of the Emperor's ambitions - https://www.historytoday.com/archive...n-and-napoleon which led to his quick amendation of the dedication to his third symphony.

It's perhaps hard now to see whether Napoleon was overall a force for good - since we live in different times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

This quote is interesting though

Napoleon had an extensive impact on the modern world, bringing liberal reforms to the numerous territories that he conquered and controlled, especially the Low Countries, Switzerland, and large parts of modern Italy and Germany. He implemented fundamental liberal policies in France and throughout Western Europe.[b] His lasting legal achievement, the Napoleonic Code, has been highly influential. Historian Andrew Roberts says, "The ideas that underpin our modern world—meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, and so on—were championed, consolidated, codified and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire."

Is that a fair assessment?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Curious history for this piece, played on R3 just now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington%27s_Victory

I guess I agree with this self assessment by LvB - "What I shit is better than anything you could ever think up!"

He wasn't always very modest though.

Do we have any feeling for what Beethoven actually felt about Wellington's victory? We know that earlier he had admired Napoleon - but that was before he started to have a dislike of the Emperor's ambitions - https://www.historytoday.com/archive...n-and-napoleon which led to his quick amendation of the dedication to his third symphony.

It's perhaps hard now to see whether Napoleon was overall a force for good - since we live in different times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

This quote is interesting though



Is that a fair assessment?

I don’t think you can sum up Napoleon and his significance in a paragraph . I would have thought 1,000 words the bare minimum. Ferguson outlines the case for the defence . Not getting into the Brexit debate but I would say that it is partly the “Napoleonic” elements of the EU that some (rightly or wrongly ) have found rebarbative. His legacy is still with us.
I think Beethoven wrote the piece for the money but I think it is Safe to say that Beethoven was mightily relieved by Napoleon’s defeat . He did not have a good Napoleonic War . He went on to write The Glorious Moment ( a much better piece than W’s V) to mark The Congress Of Vienna - where post Napoleonic Europe was carved up.
Wasn’t the Victory piece meant to accompany some weird Michael Bentine style animated model of the Battle of Waterloo designed by the immortal Maazel?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Wasn’t the Victory piece meant to accompany some weird Michael Bentine style animated model of the Battle of Waterloo designed by the immortal Maazel?

I think Maazel was the one who conducted it. I have his VPO recording, coupled with the 1812 Overture, which I think is a vastly superior work, despite all its detractors.

Johann Nepomuk Maelzel was the inventor of the panharmonicon.

[MickyD]

Though I don't think much of the piece, I do have an entertaining HIP version of it coupled with other Janissary music of the period. Recorded on some very fruity wind instruments by Octophoros on Accent.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Though I don't think much of the piece, I do have an entertaining HIP version of it coupled with other Janissary music of the period. Recorded on some very fruity wind instruments by Octophoros on Accent.

I'd very much like to hear this on an original/copy of Maelzel's invention.

[Bryn]

Though I don't think much of the piece, I do have an entertaining HIP version of it coupled with other Janissary music of the period. Recorded on some very fruity wind instruments by Octophoros on Accent.

A recording by the same forces, possibly even the same recording, used to turn up on TtN quite frequently.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think Maazel was the one who conducted it. I have his VPO recording, coupled with the 1812 Overture, which I think is a vastly superior work, despite all its detractors.

Johann Nepomuk Maelzel was the inventor of the panharmonicon.

Ta . that’s what I was groping for - it was a musical instrument not a model battlefield . Yes 1812 overture overplayed but a masterpiece …

[Serial_Apologist]

I wonder if the Portsmouth Sinfonia ever performed it - I think that would have gone down well with me.

[LMcD]

I think Maazel was the one who conducted it. I have his VPO recording, coupled with the 1812 Overture, which I think is a vastly superior work, despite all its detractors.

Johann Nepomuk Maelzel was the inventor of the panharmonicon.

You've just increased by 100% the number of people of whom I've heard whose middle name is Nepomuk - thank you!

[Serial_Apologist]

You've just increased by 100% the number of people of whom I've heard whose middle name is Nepomuk - thank you!

I thought everyone knew of the composer Johann Nepomuk David!

http://www.johann-nepomuk-david.org/index_e.html

[french frank]

You've just increased by 100% the number of people of whom I've heard whose middle name is Nepomuk - thank you!

St John of Nepomuk was a 14thc martyr so Nepomuk became a regular second name if your son was baptised John/Johann, a bit like John Baptist, John Evangelist &c. At a quick trawl:

Johann Nepomuk Passini
Johann Nepomuk Hiedler
Johann Nepomuk Strixner
Johann Nepomuk de la Croce
Johann Nepomuk Czermak
Johann Nepomuk Rust
Johann Nepomuk Mayrhofer
Johann Nepomuk Schaller
Johann Nepomuk Schödlberger
Johann Nepomuk Vogl
Johann Nepomuk Bayer
Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser
Prince Johann Nepomuk Karl of Liechtenstein

Not all were famous. I've missed out Hummel on the expectation that he was the one you'd heard of

[Historian]

There was a tradition of battle-pieces before the Beethoven example, e.g the Battle of Prague by Koczwara (1788 but describing the battle of 1757). It's an occasional piece, not aiming to be high art.

As for Napoleon, while I am happy to accept that he did leave an important positive legacy as described in the OP, he achieved this mainly by force. By 1812 the French empire dominated most of Europe and maintained its rule by the use or threat of military power. Hence, Napoleon surely bears considerable responsibility for the millions of lives lost during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). This is especially so with regard to his short-lived 'comeback' in 1815.

I think that should be remembered as it doesn't seem to figure in the rather one-sided assessment quoted at the start.

[Jonathan]

There's a rather fun recording on Naxos called "Military Beethoven" which includes Beethoven's own piano transcription of "Wellington's Victory" along with gunfire and explosion sound effects! It's really amusing!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Let us not forget that the battle commemorated did not involve Napoleon-Bonaparte himself, but only his brother, Joseph.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bonaparte

[Stanfordian]

Curious history for this piece, played on R3 just now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington%27s_Victory

I guess I agree with this self assessment by LvB - "What I shit is better than anything you could ever think up!"

He wasn't always very modest though.

Do we have any feeling for what Beethoven actually felt about Wellington's victory? We know that earlier he had admired Napoleon - but that was before he started to have a dislike of the Emperor's ambitions - https://www.historytoday.com/archive...n-and-napoleon which led to his quick amendation of the dedication to his third symphony.

It's perhaps hard now to see whether Napoleon was overall a force for good - since we live in different times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

This quote is interesting though



Is that a fair assessment?

'Wellington's Victory' is truly awful! I'm unsure why anyone would wish to hear that noisy potboiler. I guess it is the only work of Beethoven I don't enjoy hearing.