"GuiltyBystander9" wrote in message
...
Beethoven removed the dedication after Napoleon
accepted the rank of Emperor, not because of his
behaviour to the Prussians.

Well, if we want to get into this, the symphony was never "dedicated" to
Napoleon but was originally _entitled_ Bonaparte. Apparently the only
source
for the story of Beethoven changing the title of the symphony because he
was
angry that Napoleon had proclaimed himself emperor was a student of
Beethoven's
named Ries. He claimed to have seen Beethoven, when he got the news, tear
up
the title page of the score, fling it to the ground and stamp on it.
Unfortunately, the original score of the piece no longer exists, so there
is no
way to verify the story. A copy (date unknown) with corrections by
Beethoven
still bears on the title page "intitolata Bonaparte," but they have been
crossed out, presumably by Beethoven.

Sinfonia Grande Intitulata Bonaparte (A Great Symphony on Bonaparte)
to be precise.

Napoleon's coronation took place in May,
1804. In August, 1804, Beethoven offered the symphony to his Leipzig
publisher
with the note, "The symphony is actually entitled Bonaparte..."

Indeed but both Ries and Schindler insist that the new that Bonaparte
had accepted the crown only reached Beethoven in December

The document bears the pencilled annotation Geschrieben auf Bonapart but
in the main title, the name Bonapart has been scratched out so violently
that
the erasure has left a hole in the paper.

see

Anton Schindler, Beethoven as I Knew Him, edited by Donald W. MacArdle
(Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1966),

When the piece received its first public performance in April, 1805, it
was as
the Eroica, not the Bonaparte. Joseph Schmidt-Gorg, who knows as much
about
Beethoven as anyone--if not more--believed that as B. evolved his ideas
about
this symphony he decided to make the work commemorate the idea of the
great man
in general, rather than have it refer to one specific individual.

Especially as that man turned out to have feet of clay

About the controvery over the original title, he writes, "In the case of
the
Eroica, so many incorrect and misleading statements have been handed down
that
it provides a perfect example of how difficult it often is to ascertain
which
among contradictory accounts is the correct one."
Source for the above: "Ludwig van Beethoven" by Joseph Schmidt-Gorg &
Hans
Schmidt, Beethoven-Archiv, Bonn.

As an aside, I found it astounding that anyone, particularly someone who
tends
to put forward the German side of things, could possibly confuse the
Eroica
with the Choral. Could it be that Mr. E's musical taste runs more to Bon
Jovi
than Beethoven?

Nothing so refined I'm sure

Keith