0:00:02 > 0:00:05THEY PLAY OPENING NOTES OF BEETHOVEN'S FIFTH SYMPHONY
0:00:06 > 0:00:09Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony may be
0:00:09 > 0:00:12one of the greatest pieces of music ever written.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14It's certainly one of the most famous.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23And those first four notes, once heard, are never forgotten.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29The traditional wisdom has been that in the Fifth,
0:00:29 > 0:00:33Beethoven is railing against fate and his increasing deafness.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40But conductor John Eliot Gardiner believes
0:00:40 > 0:00:42that it contains a hidden, radical message.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45Expressing the composer's sympathy with
0:00:45 > 0:00:48the ideals of the French Revolution.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51Liberty, equality and brotherhood.
0:00:52 > 0:00:56It's not just a matter of his expressing his inner turmoil,
0:00:56 > 0:01:00it's also him nailing his colours to the political mast
0:01:00 > 0:01:02of the French Revolution.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09"I believe in the rights of man,
0:01:09 > 0:01:11"I believe in the brotherhood of all men
0:01:11 > 0:01:13"and I believe in political freedom."
0:01:17 > 0:01:19I'm going to look at the evidence
0:01:19 > 0:01:21for this revolutionary interpretation
0:01:21 > 0:01:23of the Fifth Symphony.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26I'll visit France, where in 1789,
0:01:26 > 0:01:28the world order was turned upside down.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33I'll be exploring Bonn, where Beethoven grew up
0:01:33 > 0:01:35and was exposed to radical ideas.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39And I'll travel to Vienna,
0:01:39 > 0:01:42the imperial capital that was Beethoven's home
0:01:42 > 0:01:45as the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars convulsed Europe.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51We'll see how these extraordinary events affected Beethoven,
0:01:51 > 0:01:55both as a man and a musician, and how his passion for the ideals
0:01:55 > 0:02:01of freedom and brotherhood fuelled the Fifth Symphony.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08With my Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12we're going to perform Beethoven's Fifth Symphony,
0:02:12 > 0:02:18and we're going to try to incorporate the emotional turmoil
0:02:18 > 0:02:23and passion and the republican political fervour
0:02:23 > 0:02:25which informs this great symphony.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35So, are you all sitting comfortably?
0:02:35 > 0:02:36You're not meant to be.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his Fifth Symphony here in Vienna,
0:02:59 > 0:03:01the Austrian capital,
0:03:01 > 0:03:04where the composer lived and worked for most of his life.
0:03:06 > 0:03:11It's become a timeless musical monument, but it was directly shaped
0:03:11 > 0:03:14by the troubled times in which Beethoven lived.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16And this may have been underestimated
0:03:16 > 0:03:19in the centuries since it was written.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22There's no better place to start an exploration of how and why
0:03:22 > 0:03:25this happened than the place where the symphony was heard
0:03:25 > 0:03:29for the very first time in December 1808.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36I'm here at the Theater an der Wien,
0:03:36 > 0:03:38a very important place for Beethoven,
0:03:38 > 0:03:41and it's connected with a number of his great works.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45But it was in this very theatre that the Fifth Symphony had its premiere.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53Beethoven was 38 and at the height of his creative powers.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56The premiere of the Fifth was scheduled towards the end
0:03:56 > 0:03:59of a benefit concert for himself,
0:03:59 > 0:04:02a packed recital of his great works.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06Beethoven was the first successful freelance composer,
0:04:06 > 0:04:10not employed by the court, so he needed the money more than most.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14It turned out to be a very interesting evening
0:04:17 > 0:04:20How does it go, this huge event, the Beethoven programme?
0:04:20 > 0:04:22It's a disaster.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25It's a complete disaster, unfortunately. It's too long.
0:04:25 > 0:04:27Imagine, it takes four hours,
0:04:27 > 0:04:30so it lasts until 10.30 in the night.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33Unfortunately, the musicians and Beethoven had a row,
0:04:33 > 0:04:35so he didn't actually talk to the orchestra himself,
0:04:35 > 0:04:37he only talked to the conductors.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39And the conductors then talked to the orchestra.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41- LAUGHING: Right! - It's a nightmare.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45- What had they had a row about? - About the rehearsal conditions
0:04:45 > 0:04:48and about Beethoven being very late on delivering the score.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51Apparently, there were also mistakes, because they didn't have
0:04:51 > 0:04:54enough time to rehearse, and at some point, Beethoven actually
0:04:54 > 0:04:57stopped the concert and started again from the beginning.
0:04:57 > 0:04:59IAN LAUGHS Was it full?
0:04:59 > 0:05:02- No.- No?- Half-full only, unfortunately.
0:05:02 > 0:05:04No, unfortunately, the same night there was
0:05:04 > 0:05:07another concert going on, for widows and orphans.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10A benefit concert, similarly as this was
0:05:10 > 0:05:13- a benefit concert for Beethoven personally.- For himself.
0:05:13 > 0:05:18Exactly. So now, unfortunately, it was only half-filled. Tough luck.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21He didn't earn as much money as he would have hoped.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23Beethoven has become the classic example of
0:05:23 > 0:05:26the intense, tortured artist.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29But he was capable of great kindness as well as terrible tantrums,
0:05:29 > 0:05:31compassion as well as passion,
0:05:31 > 0:05:34the composer of deeply sensitive pieces
0:05:34 > 0:05:37as well as what became known as heaven-storming works.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41As we'll see, the Fifth Symphony's four movements
0:05:41 > 0:05:45display all these aspects of its creator.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48But the symphony's opening was not a soothing composition
0:05:48 > 0:05:53that the theatre audience could sit back, relax and enjoy.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55It was meant to jolt them out of their seats.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59The Fifth - especially the first four notes - has become
0:05:59 > 0:06:02so well-known that it's difficult to recreate the shock
0:06:02 > 0:06:06and disorientation that Beethoven intended.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08Difficult, but not impossible.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13Over the centuries, Beethoven's masterpiece has been performed
0:06:13 > 0:06:18in ways that the bad-tempered maestro might well have hated.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21But for over 25 years, conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his
0:06:21 > 0:06:26Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique have been on a mission
0:06:26 > 0:06:30to play Beethoven's symphonies in just the way he intended.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33Here at St John's Smith Square in London, they have recorded
0:06:33 > 0:06:36a performance of the Fifth Symphony especially for us,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39with all the pace and the ferocity
0:06:39 > 0:06:42that the audience at the premiere would have experienced.
0:06:42 > 0:06:43Right, here we go.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05If there is any single piece of Beethoven's
0:07:05 > 0:07:08that really, really sort of sets one's pulse racing,
0:07:08 > 0:07:10it's the Fifth Symphony.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29Because there is something completely implacable about it.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32It's so full-on, and it leaves you breathless,
0:07:32 > 0:07:36because there is this searing energy right from the off.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39And then once he is in his full stride,
0:07:39 > 0:07:41he just never lets up and it's inexorable.
0:08:03 > 0:08:05I think the thing about tempo is
0:08:05 > 0:08:08that it has to be done with total conviction.
0:08:10 > 0:08:15And if you feel, as I do, that Beethoven is impatient
0:08:15 > 0:08:18to get his ideas over, then it's going to come over fast.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25John Eliot plays the Fifth Symphony at 108 beats per minute -
0:08:25 > 0:08:29the tempo Beethoven himself decided for it.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32The composer famously started losing his hearing when he was
0:08:32 > 0:08:36in his twenties, and specified this tempo
0:08:36 > 0:08:39years after composing the Fifth, when he had become entirely deaf.
0:08:39 > 0:08:44108bpm is SO fast that many conductors and performers
0:08:44 > 0:08:46have ignored this marking.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49So this metronome is set at...?
0:08:49 > 0:08:51108bpm.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54- Right.- And this is a new invention.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57Beethoven was excited, and he would be, bound to be,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00because if he had no means of conveying to performers...
0:09:00 > 0:09:03Because he wasn't a conductor and he was deaf
0:09:03 > 0:09:05- and he couldn't convey his ideas... - Yeah, he could tell them
0:09:05 > 0:09:08- how fast how fast or slow to go. - He could tell them.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11But...sitting here and listening to that is one thing.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14Actually standing in front of an orchestra
0:09:14 > 0:09:16and playing the music is quite different.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19But that's why you play it so fast, isn't it?
0:09:19 > 0:09:21I do, I think it's a good guideline,
0:09:21 > 0:09:24and I may even go a bit quicker than that, depends...
0:09:24 > 0:09:27Well, it depends on the set-up. It depends on the hall.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30In the Albert Hall, you know, you don't want to go
0:09:30 > 0:09:32at such a lick that the music
0:09:32 > 0:09:35doesn't have a chance to register with an audience.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37Whereas if you're doing it in a small studio,
0:09:37 > 0:09:39you can get closer to Beethoven.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50Over the centuries, many conductors have played the Fifth
0:09:50 > 0:09:52at much slower tempi.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55All through the early part of the 20th century,
0:09:55 > 0:09:58the great maestri of the day tended to expand it
0:09:58 > 0:10:02and be very self-indulgent, and to pull around the tempo.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05OPENING NOTES OF FIFTH SYMPHONY, MUCH SLOWER
0:10:05 > 0:10:08One recording even slowed it down to close to 74bpm.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15OK, this is now at 74, how does that strike you?
0:10:15 > 0:10:18Bit of a bore, bit of a snore, actually.
0:10:18 > 0:10:19How can one...?
0:10:19 > 0:10:21How can you galvanise an orchestra...?
0:10:21 > 0:10:23# Da-da-da-dee...
0:10:23 > 0:10:24"Ugh..."
0:10:24 > 0:10:26# Da-da-da-dee... #
0:10:26 > 0:10:30I mean, they'd absolutely fall asleep in their chairs.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32METRONOME TICKS
0:10:32 > 0:10:34- It's having that effect now!- Well...
0:10:42 > 0:10:47And he uses that kind of motto or icon, as it were,
0:10:47 > 0:10:48the "ba-ba-ba-bam",
0:10:48 > 0:10:51those four notes which...
0:10:51 > 0:10:57Given in that rhythm as a constant right the way through the symphony.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04So, what message could Beethoven be trying to convey
0:11:04 > 0:11:07with a furiously fast performance of his four-note motif?
0:11:15 > 0:11:18By the time he composed the Fifth, Beethoven had accepted
0:11:18 > 0:11:20that his deafness was incurable.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23The terrible realisation came during a stroll
0:11:23 > 0:11:24with a friend, Ferdinand Ries.
0:11:26 > 0:11:31Ries says "Master, listen to that shepherd blowing on his pipe."
0:11:31 > 0:11:33And Beethoven realises he can see the chap playing the pipe
0:11:33 > 0:11:35but he can't hear him,
0:11:35 > 0:11:38and that's the first time that we know of
0:11:38 > 0:11:41that it's not just someone talking that he can't hear,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44but it's music - and what else is he but a musician?
0:11:49 > 0:11:51This is why many have believed that the four notes
0:11:51 > 0:11:54are the composer railing against his deafness.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56But not everyone.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00John Eliot thinks differently.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03So what do YOU think Beethoven was saying in the Fifth Symphony?
0:12:05 > 0:12:09Well, I think he's really trying to convey
0:12:09 > 0:12:13his deeply-held political beliefs at the time.
0:12:13 > 0:12:17I mean, Beethoven's political beliefs went up and down,
0:12:17 > 0:12:20but at the particular time he was writing the symphony,
0:12:20 > 0:12:21in the early 1800s,
0:12:21 > 0:12:25he was completely under the spell of the French Revolution
0:12:25 > 0:12:31and even contemplated moving from Bonn and Vienna to Paris.
0:12:31 > 0:12:32And it always amuses me,
0:12:32 > 0:12:35the thought of Beethoven prowling around in Paris
0:12:35 > 0:12:37and not speaking a word of French - or very little -
0:12:37 > 0:12:39and you know, how would musical history
0:12:39 > 0:12:42have developed if he had become a Frenchman?
0:12:42 > 0:12:44- It would have been...- Yes. - ..a bit different.
0:12:49 > 0:12:53Could the revolution provide the secret to the Fifth Symphony?
0:12:53 > 0:12:56If so, the answer will be here, in France.
0:12:56 > 0:13:01Fontainebleau Palace just outside Paris is a perfect example
0:13:01 > 0:13:04of the world that the revolution revolted against.
0:13:05 > 0:13:08Monarchies with a divine right to rule,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11absolute power and the privileges that came with it.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14Privileges like this 1,500-room chateau,
0:13:14 > 0:13:18property of the French royalty since the Middle Ages.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21The French monarchy was the most entrenched in Europe
0:13:21 > 0:13:24and appeared to be everlasting.
0:13:24 > 0:13:26And this was just one of their playgrounds.
0:13:26 > 0:13:29As far back as the 12th century, French kings and queens
0:13:29 > 0:13:32and their families and their guests
0:13:32 > 0:13:34and their servants and their retinues
0:13:34 > 0:13:37had come here to escape the heat of Paris.
0:13:37 > 0:13:42And walking around out here, that sense of solidity,
0:13:42 > 0:13:46of confidence, of complacency even, is very apparent.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48And that's just the exteriors.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52Compared to the interiors, this is...understatement.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01The 18th century diplomat Talleyrand said,
0:14:01 > 0:14:06"Those who have not lived through the years around 1789
0:14:06 > 0:14:09"cannot know what is meant by the pleasure of life."
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Here in Fontainebleau, you can understand what he was getting at.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17The French King Louis XVI and his bride, Marie Antoinette,
0:14:17 > 0:14:22stayed here between October and November 1786.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26Among the lavish festivities laid on, the royal couple attended
0:14:26 > 0:14:30a specially-staged ballet here in this beautiful ballroom.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37They also had a chance to examine some new building work,
0:14:37 > 0:14:41including this room, a gift from the King to his Queen.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48This exquisite room, with its own en-suite bathroom,
0:14:48 > 0:14:50was Marie Antoinette's private retreat.
0:14:50 > 0:14:55It's all set in silver, which you can see on the wall coverings there,
0:14:55 > 0:14:58and there's more silver in these two pieces -
0:14:58 > 0:15:01which are both original, they were here.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05This roll-top desk and this hopper table.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07And it's silver, and it's mother-of-pearl,
0:15:07 > 0:15:10and there's brass and there's bronze and there's boxwood.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12I mean, they are quite beautiful.
0:15:17 > 0:15:21On her first visit to Paris, the 14-year-old Austrian princess
0:15:21 > 0:15:25was greeted like some sort of rock star or celebrity.
0:15:25 > 0:15:29Tens of thousands of people turned out to see her
0:15:29 > 0:15:32and 30 of them were trampled to death in the crush.
0:15:32 > 0:15:38But by 1789, stories of this sort of luxurious excess
0:15:38 > 0:15:41had turned public opinion against her.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45ANGRY SHOUTS
0:15:49 > 0:15:52The queen's lavish lifestyle did not go down well with a population
0:15:52 > 0:15:56struggling with years of bad harvests,
0:15:56 > 0:15:57high taxes and corruption.
0:15:58 > 0:16:03Resentment against the aristocracy and the clergy grew.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07And with it came a hunger for change, for freedom.
0:16:11 > 0:16:16In the long hot summer of 1789, the discontent reached breaking point
0:16:16 > 0:16:20and Paris was consumed by chaos, riots and looting.
0:16:20 > 0:16:24Then on the 14th of July, a mob stormed the Bastille,
0:16:24 > 0:16:28a fortress and prison that stood as a symbol of royal power.
0:16:30 > 0:16:35Paris was now in rebel hands. Fontainebleau Palace was plundered.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37The French revolution had begun.
0:16:42 > 0:16:46This is Le Cafe Procope, Paris' oldest cafe, and supposedly
0:16:46 > 0:16:51the place where Voltaire drank over 40 cups of coffee a day.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55It's also the place where the leaders of the French Revolution
0:16:55 > 0:17:00met regularly - Danton, Robespierre and Marat sat here
0:17:00 > 0:17:03plotting the events that would etch themselves
0:17:03 > 0:17:05in the imagination of a generation.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07Across the continent, those inspired
0:17:07 > 0:17:11included Europe's leading thinkers and artists -
0:17:11 > 0:17:13Shelley, Coleridge, Goethe, Schiller.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15And of course, Beethoven.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21The English poet Wordsworth wrote,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
0:17:23 > 0:17:26"but to be young was very heaven."
0:17:26 > 0:17:28Beethoven was just 19.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33The old feudal order - the Ancien Regime -
0:17:33 > 0:17:36was to be abolished, and its privileges, hierarchies,
0:17:36 > 0:17:40laws, courts and taxes would all be swept away.
0:17:40 > 0:17:44On August 26th, 1789, the National Assembly,
0:17:44 > 0:17:47based in this building here,
0:17:47 > 0:17:52issued a guiding founding manifesto for how it would work.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56It was called the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01In England, in Germany, and right across Europe,
0:18:01 > 0:18:04there were many, including Beethoven, who hoped that this
0:18:04 > 0:18:08might be the start of a new era, this might be year zero,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12where the Enlightenment ideal of a system of governance based
0:18:12 > 0:18:18on freedom, equality and common good would finally become a reality.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25It's generally accepted that Beethoven believed
0:18:25 > 0:18:29in the ideals of the revolution during these heady early days.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33But what's the evidence that those ideals later found their way
0:18:33 > 0:18:36into the Fifth Symphony's first four notes?
0:18:37 > 0:18:41I think it's a clandestine, subversive way
0:18:41 > 0:18:45of articulating immensely strongly-held beliefs
0:18:45 > 0:18:49and the fact is that there is this French Revolutionary Hymn
0:18:49 > 0:18:54by Cherubini, the Hymne du Pantheon, which has a sort of rabble rousing
0:18:54 > 0:19:00little chorus - "Nous jurons tous, le fer en main" - we all swear,
0:19:00 > 0:19:03sword in hand - "De mourir pour la Republique" -
0:19:03 > 0:19:05to die for the Republic -
0:19:05 > 0:19:08"et pour les droits du genre humain" - and for the rights of man.
0:19:08 > 0:19:11In rehearsals, John Eliot and his orchestra
0:19:11 > 0:19:13performed this chorus for us.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16# Nous jurons tous
0:19:16 > 0:19:20# Nous jurons tous le fer en main. #
0:19:20 > 0:19:23OK, slowly. One and two and one...
0:19:23 > 0:19:26# Nous jurons tous le fer en main
0:19:26 > 0:19:29# Nous jurons tous le fer en main... #
0:19:29 > 0:19:33John Eliot sees a similarity to Beethoven's opening notes.
0:19:33 > 0:19:38MUSIC PLAYS: Symphony No. 5 by Beethoven
0:19:42 > 0:19:43Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
0:19:43 > 0:19:47It's not just simply against fate or death or disaster,
0:19:47 > 0:19:53it's exuberant, an enormous feeling of, "Yeah, we can do it.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55"It's within human capacity to do it."
0:19:55 > 0:19:58Where did you get the idea originally
0:19:58 > 0:20:00that this is what he was up to?
0:20:00 > 0:20:03It's not in the least bit original. I'm afraid I read it
0:20:03 > 0:20:06when I was a student in Paris in the late '60s
0:20:06 > 0:20:11and it was a German musicologist Arnold Schmitz who had
0:20:11 > 0:20:15suggested there might be a rapport between or a link between his views
0:20:15 > 0:20:19and the French revolutionary hymns which were in circulation.
0:20:19 > 0:20:21And so I went off to the Bibliotheque nationale
0:20:21 > 0:20:25and did a bit of sleuthing there and sure enough, the music kind of fits
0:20:25 > 0:20:29the themes that Beethoven introduces in the first movement in the famous
0:20:29 > 0:20:35"ba-ba-ba-baam" which goes, "Nous jurons tous, le fer en main," which
0:20:35 > 0:20:40gives you a sort of clue to the type of rhetoric and the tempo, actually.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45MUSIC PLAYS: Symphony No. 5 by Beethoven
0:20:45 > 0:20:49Luigi Cherubini, an Italian composer who supported the
0:20:49 > 0:20:53revolution and settled in France, wrote his hymn in honour of
0:20:53 > 0:20:56this building in the heart of Paris - the Pantheon.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03Its history is steeped in the ideal of fraternite - brotherhood -
0:21:03 > 0:21:07that John Eliot believes drives the Fifth Symphony's first movement.
0:21:11 > 0:21:14The Pantheon was built as a church.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18But, in 1791, was transformed into an altar of liberty
0:21:18 > 0:21:21and a secular shrine for great men.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25In the crypt below are buried two French philosophers
0:21:25 > 0:21:27who inspired the revolution.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31Here's the man known as Voltaire.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34And just across the way, Jean Jacques Rousseau.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39It's the perfect place to find out more about
0:21:39 > 0:21:42the French revolutionary music that Beethoven may have drawn on.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47There were many hymns written for the revolution.
0:21:47 > 0:21:52So the one by Cherubini is particular in that it was
0:21:52 > 0:21:57especially grand and it called for a huge orchestra -
0:21:57 > 0:22:0077 players, which was very big at the time.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04Would Beethoven have known Cherubini's work?
0:22:04 > 0:22:08Beethoven certainly knew Cherubini's works because they were
0:22:08 > 0:22:12published and they were there for everyone to read and play from.
0:22:12 > 0:22:17He would also have known him because Beethoven was in contact with French
0:22:17 > 0:22:22musicians like Kreutzer, who gave his name to the Kreutzer Sonata.
0:22:22 > 0:22:27So I'm sure that these musicians didn't only make music together
0:22:27 > 0:22:30but they must have talked and read music and discussed it.
0:22:30 > 0:22:36There's a very touching anecdote about French soldiers
0:22:36 > 0:22:39visiting Beethoven and making music with him.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44So if I could go back in time,
0:22:44 > 0:22:46this is one of the things I'd like to witness.
0:22:46 > 0:22:51And what do you think the appeal to Beethoven was of this music?
0:22:51 > 0:22:56There is the elan. There is the energy, as you say,
0:22:56 > 0:23:03and "energie" was one of the key words of philosophy at the time.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08The revolution was a time of energy after
0:23:08 > 0:23:10the decadence of the Ancien Regime.
0:23:10 > 0:23:16Music was public by definition in these occasions
0:23:16 > 0:23:19and it served the function of creating a sense of collective
0:23:19 > 0:23:22feeling around the revolution.
0:23:25 > 0:23:27So it seems likely that Beethoven did know
0:23:27 > 0:23:31about this new, radical form of music, a public art
0:23:31 > 0:23:34that could express powerful political messages.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36And if John Eliot's theory is correct,
0:23:36 > 0:23:40that was exactly the effect that Beethoven was after.
0:23:40 > 0:23:43Rouget de Lille who composed La Marseillaise,
0:23:43 > 0:23:47he was an officer and not a professional musician.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51There's a famous painting showing Rouget de Lille
0:23:51 > 0:23:54declaiming his Marseillaise when he first had the idea.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58But then it became a kind of national anthem.
0:23:58 > 0:24:05MUSIC PLAYS: La Marseillaise by Rouget de Lille
0:24:07 > 0:24:11But he hit on this fantastic tune,
0:24:11 > 0:24:17which is characterised by its elan,
0:24:17 > 0:24:19the way it goes for the high notes.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21# Allons enfants de la Patrie. #
0:24:21 > 0:24:25And although nobody can sing it properly
0:24:25 > 0:24:27because the note is a bit too high.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30It's too high, yeah, and then it goes very low again -
0:24:30 > 0:24:32# Mugir ces feroces soldats. #
0:24:32 > 0:24:35Especially on football fields it's rather painful.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41It's precisely this "energie",
0:24:41 > 0:24:45a kind of musical call to arms, that John Eliot tries to
0:24:45 > 0:24:50capture and communicate in his own performance of Beethoven's Fifth.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53Schmitz' theory, which I profoundly believe in
0:24:53 > 0:24:57and I feel it gives tremendous edge in the performance, it's not
0:24:57 > 0:25:02provable in absolute terms. It's a way in
0:25:02 > 0:25:06and I think it's a good corrective or it's a helpful corrective
0:25:06 > 0:25:11to the rather wishy-washy, you know, fate and all the rest of it.
0:25:11 > 0:25:18MUSIC PLAYS: Symphony No. 5 by Beethoven
0:25:33 > 0:25:37Beethoven himself was far from a wishy-washy character.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40He was a notoriously tough and turbulent personality.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44But if he was also a radical who supported French revolutionary
0:25:44 > 0:25:47ideals, where did all that come from?
0:25:47 > 0:25:50Perhaps the answer lies in the composer's early life in Germany.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55Never an easy man, Beethoven, and this is the archetypal
0:25:55 > 0:26:01portrayal of him - intense, furious, brooding, heaven-storming.
0:26:01 > 0:26:02And this extraordinary,
0:26:02 > 0:26:08contrary personality was shaped here in Bonn during an unhappy childhood
0:26:08 > 0:26:13and a troubled youth, which made its mark on him as man and as artist.
0:26:19 > 0:26:21Beethoven was born in 1770,
0:26:21 > 0:26:26and grew up here at what's now called the Beethoven Haus.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30The infant Beethoven joined a musical family
0:26:30 > 0:26:31in a very musical city.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34His beloved grandfather was Kapellmeister,
0:26:34 > 0:26:36resident composer at Bonn's court.
0:26:37 > 0:26:41But he died when the boy was only three.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44So, how happy a home was the Beethoven Haus?
0:26:45 > 0:26:47This is it, is it?
0:26:47 > 0:26:50Yeah. We believe this is the birth room,
0:26:50 > 0:26:55but in fact we are sure this is the bedroom of the parents.
0:26:55 > 0:27:02- Right.- His father has been not so gifted as his grandfather.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05This has perhaps been a problem.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08If you have a great father and a great son,
0:27:08 > 0:27:10being in the middle of it's not very easy.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14He had some problems with alcohol.
0:27:14 > 0:27:16You would say Beethoven had a complex relationship
0:27:16 > 0:27:18with his father?
0:27:18 > 0:27:21Yes, it is certainly true. It's not a normal family.
0:27:21 > 0:27:25Beethoven's father had to train him on music, on keyboard,
0:27:25 > 0:27:31on violin and Beethoven had to learn this,
0:27:31 > 0:27:35and the method of the time is punishment...
0:27:35 > 0:27:37Involved hitting him?
0:27:37 > 0:27:39Yeah. For all children, not only for Beethoven.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43Beethoven as a child, he doesn't seem to have been happy.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47He played with his brothers. He played with other children,
0:27:47 > 0:27:49but not very much.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52He had to practise very much and he was very shy
0:27:52 > 0:27:55because he didn't go to school a very long time
0:27:55 > 0:27:59so he was very unsure of himself.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04When Beethoven was ten,
0:28:04 > 0:28:08his father took him out of school to concentrate on music.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12He hired a teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who some believe
0:28:12 > 0:28:16influenced not only Beethoven's music, but his political ideas.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22This is Bonn's Palace Chapel, the rather grand venue
0:28:22 > 0:28:27where Neefe, who was court organist, taught the young Ludwig to play.
0:28:29 > 0:28:33Beethoven played the viola, the piano and the organ,
0:28:33 > 0:28:38all brilliantly, but he wasn't an infant prodigy as a composer.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41He wasn't like the young Mozart, who by the age of ten
0:28:41 > 0:28:44had knocked out a series of symphonies
0:28:44 > 0:28:46and concertos and even an opera.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49No, this was a boy who needed nurturing.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51And Neefe was the man for the job.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54He'd had problems with his own parents,
0:28:54 > 0:28:57and he helped give the young boy a voice of his own,
0:28:57 > 0:29:00both as a player and as a composer,
0:29:00 > 0:29:02away from the influence of his father.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07And when at the age of 12 or 13, the boy said to his teacher,
0:29:07 > 0:29:10"Look, I actually want to write some piano sonatas,"
0:29:10 > 0:29:13being a composer himself, he said, "Go for it,"
0:29:13 > 0:29:16and Beethoven did and we have, at the age of 13,
0:29:16 > 0:29:19his first three piano sonatas, absolutely incredible.
0:29:19 > 0:29:23Neefe occasionally let Ludwig stand in for him
0:29:23 > 0:29:28as court organist, playing here for Bonn's ruler, the elector.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31Neefe introduced him to the works of JS Bach,
0:29:31 > 0:29:35who at the time was considered difficult, or was just unknown.
0:29:35 > 0:29:39And it wasn't only unorthodox music that interested Neefe.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42He was a member of the Freemasons, of the Illuminati,
0:29:42 > 0:29:47of something called the Reading Group, which were slightly secretive
0:29:47 > 0:29:51groups of intelligent young men who were playing with ideas that
0:29:51 > 0:29:56would make the owners of these sorts of palaces distinctly uncomfortable.
0:29:58 > 0:30:03At the time the boy Ludwig was studying music with Neefe,
0:30:03 > 0:30:08the enlightenment was sweeping Europe in all branches of the arts.
0:30:08 > 0:30:14Literature, the theatre, music, philosophy and, for the first time,
0:30:14 > 0:30:19the theory of the divine right of the monarchy was being questioned.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22"Hang on a minute, these people don't have a divine right
0:30:22 > 0:30:25"to be ruling over us."
0:30:25 > 0:30:27And Neefe, a born revolutionary at heart,
0:30:27 > 0:30:31he's bound to have just chatted to Ludwig and as a 12-year-old boy,
0:30:31 > 0:30:34you're going to listen impressed, aren't you?
0:30:34 > 0:30:37So I think Neefe was more than just a teacher for the young Ludwig -
0:30:37 > 0:30:39he was a kind of guru.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43This guru had no time for the Catholic Church,
0:30:43 > 0:30:46but he was religious and also had faith that mankind
0:30:46 > 0:30:49could create a better society.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52It's possible to detect the influence of these views
0:30:52 > 0:30:56in the second movement of his pupil's Fifth Symphony.
0:30:56 > 0:30:58THEY PLAY SECOND MOVEMENT
0:31:17 > 0:31:23It's very gentle and lissom and in the other movements,
0:31:23 > 0:31:26there's often incredible beauty and a softness.
0:31:39 > 0:31:43The other thing that is so new with Beethoven
0:31:43 > 0:31:48and so sort of enticing about the Fifth Symphony
0:31:48 > 0:31:53is the extraordinary kind of humanity of the man,
0:31:53 > 0:31:55the humanity of his breadth of vision.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09We don't know a lot about Beethoven's religious views.
0:32:09 > 0:32:15One senses that he had religious views
0:32:15 > 0:32:18that were optimistic.
0:32:28 > 0:32:33And you get a kind of foretaste of that in this second movement
0:32:33 > 0:32:36of the Fifth Symphony that it feels like a prayer.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48In contrast to the struggle and the strife of the first movement
0:32:48 > 0:32:52that Beethoven is suggesting that in humanity,
0:32:52 > 0:32:56there is a capacity to perfect itself.
0:33:01 > 0:33:05So that it's a prayer in that sense for a better soul,
0:33:05 > 0:33:07a better human being.
0:33:12 > 0:33:16In his mission to express the real meaning of the Fifth Symphony,
0:33:16 > 0:33:19John Eliot and his orchestra insist on using instruments
0:33:19 > 0:33:22from Beethoven's time.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25They were in transition between baroque and modern design,
0:33:25 > 0:33:28and the musical experience is very different,
0:33:28 > 0:33:30for the audience and the players.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36I mean, of course one can play this music on a modern set-up,
0:33:36 > 0:33:41but it produces a different type of ethos, doesn't it?
0:33:41 > 0:33:44- Pete, can you show us? - It's a different sound.
0:33:44 > 0:33:48Yes, this is a lovely old Italian violin with all gut strings on,
0:33:48 > 0:33:54including an original type of G-string and it's sort of...
0:34:04 > 0:34:09There is a definite purity about that, which I find very attractive.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12So everybody in the orchestra has these strings
0:34:12 > 0:34:16and it changes the string sound tremendously, I think.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18It's more layered, isn't it? You get more different textures.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21It's a different feel and a different sort of sensitivity
0:34:21 > 0:34:23that's required. I have got here...
0:34:25 > 0:34:27..exactly the same maker,
0:34:27 > 0:34:29but this one has got modern strings on.
0:34:29 > 0:34:32They're sort of nylon, metal.
0:34:42 > 0:34:44It's a completely different type of sound,
0:34:44 > 0:34:46you have to play it in a different way.
0:34:46 > 0:34:48It's more powerful, it's more fruity,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52it's got more sheer density, hasn't it?
0:34:52 > 0:34:53But that one...
0:34:55 > 0:34:57..just go back to that, cos that has...
0:34:57 > 0:34:58It's got a purer sort of...
0:35:18 > 0:35:26The result is that you get a much more multi-layered strata of sounds,
0:35:26 > 0:35:28not all kind of curdling and amalgamating
0:35:28 > 0:35:30in the way that they do,
0:35:30 > 0:35:32or they tend to do in a modern symphony orchestra.
0:35:35 > 0:35:36That's the good news,
0:35:36 > 0:35:39but playing on these instruments has its challenges too.
0:35:43 > 0:35:44And a thing like this,
0:35:44 > 0:35:48which hasn't altered much in structure or in shape
0:35:48 > 0:35:53since Monteverdi's day and is only held together, what...?
0:35:53 > 0:35:56By a block of wood and some cord holding the thing together.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58There is no soldered bits or anything like that.
0:35:58 > 0:36:00Not like a modern set-up.
0:36:00 > 0:36:02It feels like it is going to come to pieces in your hands.
0:36:07 > 0:36:09And the challenges are immense
0:36:09 > 0:36:11because these instruments of Beethoven's
0:36:11 > 0:36:17are hugely fragile and compromised.
0:36:17 > 0:36:21If you push them too hard, they splinter, they crack, they squawk.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30With these instruments, because of their fragility
0:36:30 > 0:36:34and their technical fallibility, you have to push them to the nth degree.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49I had a conversation with a friend of mine who runs a Formula One team
0:36:49 > 0:36:52and he was saying that his ultimate Formula One car,
0:36:52 > 0:36:55the moment it crosses that finish line,
0:36:55 > 0:36:57it would fall to pieces.
0:36:57 > 0:37:01You know, it couldn't go another metre and when we play this music
0:37:01 > 0:37:03on these instruments, I feel we are the same.
0:37:17 > 0:37:20I mean, this is...
0:37:20 > 0:37:23This is indomitable, relentless,
0:37:23 > 0:37:26unreasonable music and Beethoven seems to me
0:37:26 > 0:37:28a very unreasonable man
0:37:28 > 0:37:31who makes unreasonable demands of these instruments
0:37:31 > 0:37:33and we couldn't give it any more on these.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02This unreasonable, rebellious side developed
0:38:02 > 0:38:05when Beethoven enrolled at Bonn University in 1789.
0:38:08 > 0:38:10The French Revolution took place that very year
0:38:10 > 0:38:14and the young Beethoven immersed himself in the radical ideas
0:38:14 > 0:38:16that swept through the university.
0:38:18 > 0:38:20Like students before and since,
0:38:20 > 0:38:22Beethoven spent time in the town's taverns,
0:38:22 > 0:38:26where his fellows debated philosophy and literature.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29And, of course, tried to seduce young women.
0:38:31 > 0:38:36This tavern's claim to fame is that it was here that the young Beethoven
0:38:36 > 0:38:39danced with his first love, Barbe Koch.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43It's a charming image, but from what we know about Beethoven,
0:38:43 > 0:38:47not terribly likely, given that he was notoriously badly coordinated
0:38:47 > 0:38:51and socially awkward, particularly around women.
0:38:51 > 0:38:54Light-hearted flirtation was not really his thing,
0:38:54 > 0:38:56more unrequited anguish.
0:38:56 > 0:38:59But his personality perfectly suited
0:38:59 > 0:39:02the prevailing arts movement of the time,
0:39:02 > 0:39:06Sturm und Drang, Storm and Strife.
0:39:07 > 0:39:09You couldn't get more Sturm and Drang
0:39:09 > 0:39:12than the German playwright Friedrich Schiller
0:39:12 > 0:39:15and he would have a lasting influence on Beethoven
0:39:15 > 0:39:17and his Fifth Symphony.
0:39:17 > 0:39:18Danke schoen.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23Beethoven went to see a production of Schiller's The Robbers
0:39:23 > 0:39:24here in Bonn.
0:39:24 > 0:39:29This was an epic melodrama which featured a hero who was a student,
0:39:29 > 0:39:33a revolutionary who decided to rebel against what he saw as
0:39:33 > 0:39:39the hypocrisy of class and religion and economic inequality in Germany.
0:39:39 > 0:39:43You can imagine Beethoven was a fan, but it was more than that.
0:39:43 > 0:39:48When the play premiered at Mannheim in 1782, an eyewitness wrote,
0:39:48 > 0:39:51"The theatre was like a madhouse with people rolling their eyes
0:39:51 > 0:39:55"and clenching their fists and outcries from the audience.
0:39:55 > 0:39:58"Strangers fell with sobs into each other's arms,
0:39:58 > 0:40:01"women became unconscious and had to leave the theatre.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05"It was a general uproar, a chaos."
0:40:05 > 0:40:09That was the effect that real art could have on an audience.
0:40:13 > 0:40:15This is not entertainment for people,
0:40:15 > 0:40:19this is a form of experience, of drama,
0:40:19 > 0:40:24of perhaps, at that time, almost unparalleled power and strength.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27I think that gives Beethoven a vision of what an artist
0:40:27 > 0:40:29can do with an audience.
0:40:30 > 0:40:34I can't prove it, but the relationship of how audiences felt
0:40:34 > 0:40:39about Schiller's The Robbers in about 1780 or 1790 or so
0:40:39 > 0:40:43and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is unmistakable.
0:40:43 > 0:40:47Beethoven remained less lucky in love than music,
0:40:47 > 0:40:50but he never stopped believing in the possibility of romance.
0:40:51 > 0:40:57Beethoven's history with women is not a hugely successful story.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00We know for sure that he proposed marriage three times
0:41:00 > 0:41:04to three different women. We know he was turned down each time.
0:41:04 > 0:41:09Some experts believe Beethoven may have died a reluctant virgin
0:41:09 > 0:41:13and it's very possible that he channelled his unrequited passion
0:41:13 > 0:41:17into his music, or into his politics, or perhaps both.
0:41:19 > 0:41:22Until the revolution, Beethoven's own compositions
0:41:22 > 0:41:24had been rather conservative,
0:41:24 > 0:41:27but after it, he began to take more risks,
0:41:27 > 0:41:29writing more challenging works.
0:41:29 > 0:41:32Some of them were overtly political
0:41:32 > 0:41:36and one of these feeds directly into the Fifth Symphony.
0:41:36 > 0:41:41# Wer, wer ist ein freier Mann...? #
0:41:41 > 0:41:48In 1792, Beethoven set The Free Man, a poem by Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel,
0:41:48 > 0:41:49to music.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54# Wer ist ein freier Mann?
0:41:54 > 0:41:57# Ein freier, freier Mann? #
0:41:58 > 0:42:00This is the first published edition
0:42:00 > 0:42:04of the score of some early Beethoven compositions,
0:42:04 > 0:42:07including Der Freie Mann,
0:42:07 > 0:42:11a definition of what makes a free man
0:42:11 > 0:42:15and, really, it's a description of Beethoven himself.
0:42:15 > 0:42:19The words go like this: "Wer ist ein freier Mann?" -
0:42:19 > 0:42:21"Who is a free man?
0:42:21 > 0:42:27"One who, enclosed within himself, can set at naught the venal favour
0:42:27 > 0:42:33"of great and small alike - he is a free man."
0:42:33 > 0:42:34It's pretty heady stuff,
0:42:34 > 0:42:38but this wasn't just some youthful folly on Beethoven's part.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43The opening bars of Der Freie Mann are identical
0:42:43 > 0:42:46to the opening of the fourth movement of the Fifth Symphony,
0:42:46 > 0:42:48also set in C major.
0:42:48 > 0:42:53# Wer ist ein freier Mann...? #
0:42:53 > 0:42:57Beethoven first introduces this musical motif of freedom achieved
0:42:57 > 0:43:00in the second movement of his Fifth Symphony.
0:43:00 > 0:43:02# Ein freier, freier Mann. #
0:43:08 > 0:43:12Der Freie Mann dates from many years earlier
0:43:12 > 0:43:16and surely prefigures the Fifth
0:43:16 > 0:43:21in a certain, at least embryonic, but nevertheless significant way.
0:43:21 > 0:43:22Already here...
0:43:27 > 0:43:33..is the rising triadic idea which has some parallel
0:43:33 > 0:43:37already in that early song The Free Man.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49THEY PLAY SECOND MOVEMENT
0:44:07 > 0:44:10Even though he's hinting at the C Major of the triumph
0:44:10 > 0:44:13that's going to eventually come in the last movement,
0:44:13 > 0:44:19the eclat triomphal to which we're all moving towards,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23it's a foretaste and yet it's aborted.
0:44:29 > 0:44:34No sooner have they arrived at that chord than it disappears,
0:44:34 > 0:44:37it's sort of like a puff of smoke, it's gone into the ether.
0:44:48 > 0:44:51So one could say that the goal of the symphony - freedom -
0:44:51 > 0:44:52has not yet been reached.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03In 1792, Beethoven left Bonn for good.
0:45:03 > 0:45:08The ambitious 22-year-old was keen to make his musical mark,
0:45:08 > 0:45:10so he moved to Vienna, the Austrian capital,
0:45:10 > 0:45:13where he would write the Fifth Symphony in 1807.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18By this time, the revolution that Beethoven supported
0:45:18 > 0:45:21was spreading across Europe
0:45:21 > 0:45:23and it made his trip a troubled one.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28Beethoven was travelling through the middle of a war.
0:45:28 > 0:45:31France was trying to export the revolution,
0:45:31 > 0:45:33with which he sympathised,
0:45:33 > 0:45:36into the country where he wanted to live and work.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41French troops, many of them marching to the Marseillaise,
0:45:41 > 0:45:44were advancing into Germany and towards Austria,
0:45:44 > 0:45:48and defending troops were massing in the Rhineland.
0:45:48 > 0:45:53Beethoven records in his diary that he had to tip his driver one thaler
0:45:53 > 0:45:56because, "The fellow drove us at the risk of a whipping
0:45:56 > 0:45:59"right through the Hessian lines," which were the German troops,
0:45:59 > 0:46:01"going like crazy."
0:46:02 > 0:46:04There are calmer ways to do the journey.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10It would be surprising if Beethoven didn't have mixed feelings
0:46:10 > 0:46:14as French troops threatened the city of his childhood
0:46:14 > 0:46:17and it was becoming harder for him to support the realities
0:46:17 > 0:46:18of the Revolution in France.
0:46:20 > 0:46:23Events there were taking a much darker turn.
0:46:23 > 0:46:27In 1793, just four years after the fall of the Bastille,
0:46:27 > 0:46:29the ruling National Convention declared
0:46:29 > 0:46:33that counter-revolutionaries would be executed.
0:46:33 > 0:46:35King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette,
0:46:35 > 0:46:38were arrested and held captive.
0:46:38 > 0:46:41And they weren't the only ones.
0:46:41 > 0:46:44This grim-looking building is La Conciergerie,
0:46:44 > 0:46:47used by the National Convention as a prison.
0:46:48 > 0:46:49With no artificial light,
0:46:49 > 0:46:54this must have been an even more forbidding and gloomy place.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02Enemies of the Revolution were imprisoned here...
0:47:05 > 0:47:09..before being dispatched by a specially invented new machine,
0:47:09 > 0:47:11the guillotine.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13At the time, the Convention,
0:47:13 > 0:47:15who were ruling France in the name of the people,
0:47:15 > 0:47:19congratulated itself on this humane form of execution.
0:47:20 > 0:47:26On January 21st, 1793, the deposed king himself, Louis XVI,
0:47:26 > 0:47:30was executed, publicly, and humanely.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40And this is the chapel where his queen, Marie Antoinette,
0:47:40 > 0:47:44prayed whilst imprisoned and awaiting her fate.
0:47:45 > 0:47:51This is the original floor and this is the exact spot where she knelt.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56On October 16th, 1793,
0:47:56 > 0:47:59Marie Antoinette was dispatched to the guillotine.
0:47:59 > 0:48:05And when the blade descended, the crowd shouted, "Vive La Nation!"
0:48:07 > 0:48:09During the two-year Reign of Terror,
0:48:09 > 0:48:14more than 2,700 people appeared before the Revolutionary Tribunal
0:48:14 > 0:48:17in La Conciergerie's grand chamber.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23The condemned prisoners were held in batches in that compound,
0:48:23 > 0:48:25behind those gates,
0:48:25 > 0:48:29and their relatives were allowed to come in and say a last goodbye.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35The Revolution had begun to devour its own children,
0:48:35 > 0:48:40and Schiller and the English poets publicly recanted,
0:48:40 > 0:48:45and Coleridge even called for the restoration of the Ancien Regime.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48Beethoven was as horrified as anyone else by the excesses
0:48:48 > 0:48:50thrown up by the French Revolution,
0:48:50 > 0:48:55but he didn't lose faith with the ideals and the principals behind it.
0:49:02 > 0:49:07Vienna in 1793 was an unlikely setting to write a symphony
0:49:07 > 0:49:10supporting the ideals of the French Revolution.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18It was the capital of the centuries-old European dynastic power,
0:49:18 > 0:49:22the Habsburg Empire, which was a major force in a military coalition
0:49:22 > 0:49:24battling the French armies.
0:49:28 > 0:49:32Viennese society was under threat, yet the paranoid upper classes
0:49:32 > 0:49:35distracted themselves with fun and frivolity.
0:49:37 > 0:49:42I suspect Beethoven would have seen plenty to disapprove of here,
0:49:42 > 0:49:44but he also had very good reasons
0:49:44 > 0:49:46to keep such political views to himself.
0:49:53 > 0:49:57In a letter from August 1794, Beethoven wrote,
0:49:57 > 0:50:00"I believe that as long as an Austrian can get his brown ale
0:50:00 > 0:50:03"and his little sausages, he is not likely to revolt."
0:50:05 > 0:50:07But he added ominously,
0:50:07 > 0:50:09"People say that the gates leading to the suburbs
0:50:09 > 0:50:11"are to be closed at 10pm.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15"The soldiers have loaded their muskets with ball.
0:50:15 > 0:50:16"You dare not raise your voice here
0:50:16 > 0:50:19"or the police will take you into custody."
0:50:21 > 0:50:23Austria seemed a bit like a police state.
0:50:26 > 0:50:30So, why did the Austrians react so strongly to the events in France?
0:50:30 > 0:50:32There was these family connections
0:50:32 > 0:50:35between the French and the Austrian monarchy,
0:50:35 > 0:50:39Marie Antoinette being an Austrian princess.
0:50:39 > 0:50:41Right, so it was coming straight home?
0:50:41 > 0:50:43And so, it was really coming straight home
0:50:43 > 0:50:46and hitting the Habsburg family.
0:50:46 > 0:50:52Did they clamp down on any sort of radical thinking?
0:50:52 > 0:50:56The police was reorganised and much more centralised.
0:50:56 > 0:51:01The idea was to involve as many people as possible
0:51:01 > 0:51:04in spying on as many people as possible.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07Do you think Beethoven would have been an obvious suspect?
0:51:07 > 0:51:13I think he would have been a kind of an obvious target.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18One can easily understand why he himself
0:51:18 > 0:51:22tried to keep a low profile in his writings.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25They would open letters, read letters.
0:51:25 > 0:51:27I think he was quite aware of that
0:51:27 > 0:51:32and probably kept also here a rather low profile.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36The letters have jokes in them, but there's nothing dangerous there.
0:51:36 > 0:51:39I think, you know, it's quite likely that they were
0:51:39 > 0:51:44- watching him as they were watching a lot of people.- So we don't know?
0:51:44 > 0:51:46But we have very good reasons to guess.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51It turns out that the police definitely kept files
0:51:51 > 0:51:55about Beethoven from 1815 to 1821.
0:51:55 > 0:51:59This makes it very likely that they would have kept an eye on him
0:51:59 > 0:52:00well before that.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05So it's not surprising that Beethoven's letter of 1794
0:52:05 > 0:52:09about police arrests is his last mention of politics for a long time.
0:52:11 > 0:52:13The glamorous city did have its dark side
0:52:13 > 0:52:17and Beethoven clearly felt sufficiently under surveillance
0:52:17 > 0:52:19to be careful with what he said.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23And the bulk of what he really thought and felt
0:52:23 > 0:52:24I think he kept for his music.
0:52:38 > 0:52:40And Vienna was the only place to be
0:52:40 > 0:52:43for an ambitious young composer like Beethoven.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46It was home to the two musical giants of the age,
0:52:46 > 0:52:49the men who Beethoven aimed to match:
0:52:49 > 0:52:53Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who'd died here in 1791,
0:52:53 > 0:52:55and Joseph Haydn, still alive,
0:52:55 > 0:52:58and the composer of over 100 symphonies.
0:53:00 > 0:53:03Beethoven never held a paid post within the Imperial Court,
0:53:03 > 0:53:05the centre of the city's music making.
0:53:06 > 0:53:09Instead, he carved out a pioneering place
0:53:09 > 0:53:11as a freelance composer and musician.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17So without having a salaried position,
0:53:17 > 0:53:20Beethoven needed to find an alternative source of income
0:53:20 > 0:53:21while he composed.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24Fortunately, there were plenty of opportunities
0:53:24 > 0:53:29for the ambitious musician to gain patronage from Vienna's aristocrats.
0:53:32 > 0:53:34Unfortunately, Beethoven had very mixed feelings
0:53:34 > 0:53:37about being dependent on the upper classes.
0:53:39 > 0:53:43And he had a patchy record with the Viennese rules of social etiquette.
0:53:43 > 0:53:45One upper-class lady noted sniffily
0:53:45 > 0:53:49that while Haydn would arrive "most carefully attired",
0:53:49 > 0:53:51Beethoven came "negligently dressed
0:53:51 > 0:53:55"in the freer fashion of the Upper Rhine" -
0:53:55 > 0:53:57in other words, scruffy.
0:53:59 > 0:54:01Tell me where we are.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05This is the town palace of Prince Lobkowitz and his wife.
0:54:05 > 0:54:08Concerts were the main purpose of this room,
0:54:08 > 0:54:12because they had a private concert every week.
0:54:12 > 0:54:15- That's him, is it?- Yeah, yeah.
0:54:15 > 0:54:20The young and very ambitious nobility of the time,
0:54:20 > 0:54:24they wanted, really... There was a fun factor to it.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27They invested in a guy who did good music,
0:54:27 > 0:54:32it was like the rock concerts of the time.
0:54:32 > 0:54:37I mean, you had brilliant new music, a very bizarre style -
0:54:37 > 0:54:43they were really lifted up by this kind of new experience.
0:54:43 > 0:54:48About 80% of his compositions are dedicated to noblemen.
0:54:48 > 0:54:55And it's because he was very into, um...
0:54:55 > 0:54:57- Um...- Being paid?
0:54:57 > 0:55:01..being paid and he networked very, very well
0:55:01 > 0:55:03and he was working very hard on that.
0:55:03 > 0:55:05Do you think he found that annoying?
0:55:05 > 0:55:07That he needed patrons?
0:55:07 > 0:55:11What I think is that it was too much for him.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13For example, his relationship with another patron,
0:55:13 > 0:55:17Prince Lichnowsky, who wanted him to eat with him.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23Well, regularly at four o'clock in the afternoon, yes, we know that.
0:55:23 > 0:55:25And he sometimes refused that.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29He was older than Beethoven, about 17 years older.
0:55:29 > 0:55:32- Yes, he looks grander.- Yes, he was already a patron of Mozart.
0:55:32 > 0:55:35I mean, he allowed Beethoven in his house,
0:55:35 > 0:55:38but he was with all the other servants at the beginning,
0:55:38 > 0:55:42he was in not very agreeable rooms, and then he...
0:55:42 > 0:55:46- He became his equal through his own talent?- Yes.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50Then they would dine once in a while together.
0:55:50 > 0:55:53And then the situation changed again,
0:55:53 > 0:55:55that Beethoven sometimes said, "Oh, no, please,
0:55:55 > 0:55:57"I just can't deal with it any more."
0:55:57 > 0:56:00So, Beethoven can't do small talk, he doesn't dress properly,
0:56:00 > 0:56:03he doesn't turn up to dinner when you ask him.
0:56:03 > 0:56:04Why did everyone put up with him?
0:56:04 > 0:56:07Because he was a brilliant composer.
0:56:07 > 0:56:08They just loved his music.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15I'm getting a clear picture of a man whose attitude to Viennese society
0:56:15 > 0:56:18was complex and conflicted.
0:56:18 > 0:56:22On the one hand, he was genuinely fond of his patrons,
0:56:22 > 0:56:24but on the other, he was a meritocrat
0:56:24 > 0:56:27working in an aristocratic system.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30He famously wrote to Prince Lichnowsky:
0:56:30 > 0:56:34"what you are, you are by accident of birth.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37"What I am, I am by myself.
0:56:37 > 0:56:40"There are, and will be, a thousand princes.
0:56:40 > 0:56:42"There is only one Beethoven."
0:56:43 > 0:56:45Is this just egotistical,
0:56:45 > 0:56:49or is this evidence of the old, firebrand radical
0:56:49 > 0:56:50still in there somewhere?
0:56:53 > 0:56:57But his patrons' generosity paid for Beethoven to compose
0:56:57 > 0:56:59and by the early 1800s,
0:56:59 > 0:57:03he had written concertos, sonatas and his first two symphonies.
0:57:03 > 0:57:04To boost his income,
0:57:04 > 0:57:08Beethoven taught piano to young upper-class women.
0:57:08 > 0:57:12There was something of a love-hate relationship here too.
0:57:14 > 0:57:16He hated teaching, but he needed the money.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18One can imagine in that confined situation,
0:57:18 > 0:57:22sitting next to a young attractive woman, and that's where most often
0:57:22 > 0:57:25he fell in love and, of course, he fell in love frequently.
0:57:28 > 0:57:32One failed infatuation led to Beethoven's famous piano piece,
0:57:32 > 0:57:34the Moonlight Sonata.
0:57:34 > 0:57:37MUSIC: Moonlight Sonata
0:57:37 > 0:57:40Indeed, his finest work often arose from personal crisis.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44In 1802 came the most devastating of all:
0:57:44 > 0:57:49Beethoven accepted that his hearing loss was probably untreatable.
0:57:49 > 0:57:51He would go deaf.
0:57:51 > 0:57:53Many believe this is "fate knocking at the door",
0:57:53 > 0:57:57the secret behind the four-note motif at the Fifth Symphony's heart.
0:57:59 > 0:58:01But not everyone agrees.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04He sits down at his table in this cottage,
0:58:04 > 0:58:07I imagine with a carafe of red wine there,
0:58:07 > 0:58:09knocks it back to give himself strength
0:58:09 > 0:58:12and writes his last will and testament.
0:58:12 > 0:58:16And I imagine him staring at the paper before he writes the words.
0:58:16 > 0:58:21He writes, "Ich bin taub" - "I am deaf."
0:58:21 > 0:58:22And he stares at those words
0:58:22 > 0:58:25and I imagine they were leaping out at him.
0:58:25 > 0:58:29More wine and he's admitted it to himself for the first time,
0:58:29 > 0:58:33and so we have the famous Heiligenstadt Testament.
0:58:33 > 0:58:37He's confronted his deafness by writing those three little words
0:58:37 > 0:58:41and by confronting it, he's overcome it, he's beaten it
0:58:41 > 0:58:42and he never looks back.
0:58:45 > 0:58:48If this is right, then it seems unlikely that the Fifth
0:58:48 > 0:58:51is merely Beethoven railing against his deafness -
0:58:51 > 0:58:54he has already in some way come to terms with it.
0:58:55 > 0:58:59So began what's known as Beethoven's "heroic period",
0:58:59 > 0:59:02where the composer produced masterpiece after masterpiece,
0:59:02 > 0:59:05the Fifth Symphony among them.
0:59:05 > 0:59:07The outlines of many of these great works
0:59:07 > 0:59:10can be found in one of Beethoven's musical sketchbooks,
0:59:10 > 0:59:13called Landsberg 6.
0:59:13 > 0:59:17This definitive edition has been put together by Professor Lewis Lockwood
0:59:17 > 0:59:19and his colleague, Alan Gosman.
0:59:21 > 0:59:22Now, what's in this sketchbook?
0:59:22 > 0:59:24All the sketches for all the works
0:59:24 > 0:59:30from very late in 1802 to the beginning of 1804.
0:59:30 > 0:59:33Now, very late in 1802 is only a couple of months after
0:59:33 > 0:59:35the Heiligenstadt Crisis.
0:59:35 > 0:59:39The sketchbook reveals that Beethoven has already decided
0:59:39 > 0:59:41on the Cherubini-inspired motif.
0:59:42 > 0:59:46On the next page and significantly marked "symphonia",
0:59:46 > 0:59:49so he writes them a note to say, "This is what I'm writing,
0:59:49 > 0:59:51"I'm writing a symphony now,"
0:59:51 > 0:59:56and we find the first idea for the first movement of the Fifth Symphony
0:59:56 > 1:00:01in what appears to be a fairly developed form
1:00:01 > 1:00:03for the basic themes of the exposition,
1:00:03 > 1:00:06- the first theme... - HE HUMS OPENING NOTES
1:00:06 > 1:00:10..continuing and then the second contrasting theme,
1:00:10 > 1:00:14- second subject... - HE HUMS NOTES
1:00:14 > 1:00:15..et cetera.
1:00:15 > 1:00:17The rest is not clear yet,
1:00:17 > 1:00:22but we have the beginning of the first movement, basic ideas,
1:00:22 > 1:00:25and then some scattered ideas for what might come next.
1:00:26 > 1:00:29And Beethoven sketched a rough version
1:00:29 > 1:00:32of the beginning of the third movement, the scherzo.
1:00:32 > 1:00:34At the bottom of the page,
1:00:34 > 1:00:38late in the sketchbook, we find some interesting new material
1:00:38 > 1:00:41which turns out to be a primordial version of the scherzo
1:00:41 > 1:00:44of the Fifth Symphony.
1:00:45 > 1:00:47And that continues on the next page,
1:00:47 > 1:00:51where the trio of that scherzo in primitive form is present.
1:00:52 > 1:00:56We have a sort of scherzo trio idea pretty well formed.
1:00:57 > 1:00:59Now, the third movement in a symphony
1:00:59 > 1:01:02is normally something light -
1:01:02 > 1:01:05a dance, a minuet, something relaxed, jolly.
1:01:05 > 1:01:08But Beethoven had other ideas.
1:01:08 > 1:01:11THIRD MOVEMENT IS PLAYED
1:01:26 > 1:01:29It starts off very unconventionally as a lyrical,
1:01:29 > 1:01:32slightly ambling figure in the cellos and basses
1:01:32 > 1:01:37and that is just a preamble to the opening rhythm, the motto,
1:01:37 > 1:01:40that's been there right from the start of the first movement,
1:01:40 > 1:01:44but now given in slow, whole notes by the horns.
1:02:01 > 1:02:07And it's such a vigorous tramp of music,
1:02:07 > 1:02:10as though Beethoven is saying, "This is how it's going to be.
1:02:10 > 1:02:12"This is what I really believe in."
1:02:15 > 1:02:18And it really does feel as though humanity is on the march again here.
1:02:34 > 1:02:37And then he does something quite extraordinary.
1:02:37 > 1:02:40In the place of a trio - the trio is usually the kind of contrast
1:02:40 > 1:02:43to the minuet in a Mozart or Haydn symphony -
1:02:43 > 1:02:46he goes completely berserk, totally berserk.
1:02:46 > 1:02:50He sets off the cellos and basses and violas.
1:02:50 > 1:02:52HE HUMS NOTES RAPIDLY
1:02:58 > 1:03:00And you think, "What on earth is going on here?"
1:03:06 > 1:03:12It's as though this inexorable march of the troops going into battle
1:03:12 > 1:03:16has suddenly been diverted by a few complete hooligans
1:03:16 > 1:03:18who are dashing off into the undergrowth saying,
1:03:18 > 1:03:20"No, no, no, we're not going on this route,
1:03:20 > 1:03:22"we're going somewhere completely different."
1:03:42 > 1:03:44It's a kind of distraction
1:03:44 > 1:03:48and then you go back to the security of the march tune.
1:04:07 > 1:04:11Here in the third movement, it's everybody coming together,
1:04:11 > 1:04:14as though asserting that there is an end
1:04:14 > 1:04:16to this long march of the symphony
1:04:16 > 1:04:20and there will be something of a conclusion.
1:04:20 > 1:04:23Who knows at that stage what it's going to be?
1:04:40 > 1:04:42So the scherzo seems to be revolutionary
1:04:42 > 1:04:44in more than just musical form.
1:04:44 > 1:04:47Maybe Cherubini's motif here is a reminder
1:04:47 > 1:04:50that the fight for the rights of man continued,
1:04:50 > 1:04:53as did Beethoven's own struggles in repressive Vienna.
1:04:54 > 1:04:59Despite the personal risks, in the late 1790s, he attended the salons
1:04:59 > 1:05:04of the French ambassador, mixing with radicals and French musicians.
1:05:04 > 1:05:07It's most likely here that Beethoven was first introduced
1:05:07 > 1:05:11to the work of Cherubini and other revolutionary composers.
1:05:12 > 1:05:16France and its republican ideals seem to have been very much
1:05:16 > 1:05:20on Beethoven's mind in the early 1800s, too.
1:05:20 > 1:05:23The Landsberg 6 sketchbook also contains
1:05:23 > 1:05:26the first outlines of his only opera, Fidelio,
1:05:26 > 1:05:31that was inspired by the fall of the Bastille prison in 1789.
1:05:33 > 1:05:36Beethoven also wrote very detailed sketches for his third symphony,
1:05:36 > 1:05:39the Eroica - the "heroic" symphony.
1:05:39 > 1:05:42MUSIC: Symphony No. 3
1:05:42 > 1:05:47It was originally named directly after this man - Napoleon Bonaparte.
1:05:47 > 1:05:50As a young general, Napoleon had masterminded
1:05:50 > 1:05:53the French Revolutionary Army's military success across Europe,
1:05:53 > 1:05:55sweeping away old regimes
1:05:55 > 1:05:58in the name of liberty, equality and brotherhood.
1:06:00 > 1:06:04Napoleon symbolised the triumph of the individual,
1:06:04 > 1:06:06the obscure Corsican who came from nowhere
1:06:06 > 1:06:09in an incredibly short period of time
1:06:09 > 1:06:13to make himself the most important man in Europe.
1:06:13 > 1:06:16There's obviously a degree of self-identification with Beethoven.
1:06:16 > 1:06:20They were both self-made men, they were the same age,
1:06:20 > 1:06:22they were even the same height.
1:06:22 > 1:06:24But the important thing for Beethoven,
1:06:24 > 1:06:26as with so many others at the time,
1:06:26 > 1:06:30was that Napoleon was the new standard bearer
1:06:30 > 1:06:32for the ideals of the Revolution.
1:06:33 > 1:06:35But for many across Europe,
1:06:35 > 1:06:39Napoleon was becoming a parody of all he was supposed to believe in.
1:06:39 > 1:06:43In England, caricaturists began developing the satirical stereotype
1:06:43 > 1:06:46of Bonaparte that has lasted up to this day.
1:06:47 > 1:06:50And the caricaturists' main line of attack
1:06:50 > 1:06:53is that Napoleon is very small.
1:06:53 > 1:06:55Yes. In fact, he wasn't very small.
1:06:55 > 1:06:59He was 5'6", which is a perfectly decent height,
1:06:59 > 1:07:03average height for a Frenchman at the time.
1:07:03 > 1:07:04But if you show him as very small,
1:07:04 > 1:07:07then we don't have to be that frightened of him.
1:07:07 > 1:07:10You also show him as evil, so we have to fight him.
1:07:10 > 1:07:14- Small, evil person.- Small, evil person who we can overthrow, yep.
1:07:14 > 1:07:17- So he became known as "Little Boney"?- "Little Boney", yeah.
1:07:17 > 1:07:18And there he is. And who is this?
1:07:18 > 1:07:21This is Marianne, the genius of France,
1:07:21 > 1:07:25this horrible harridan, blood-soaked, of course,
1:07:25 > 1:07:28and she is dangling him as a little child on her hand.
1:07:28 > 1:07:32And these are... Again, he's very, very small,
1:07:32 > 1:07:35- but these are reproduced on mugs. - These are on mugs.
1:07:35 > 1:07:39These show what will happen if Napoleon did arrive in London
1:07:39 > 1:07:43and he's standing outside the print shop, of course,
1:07:43 > 1:07:44of Mr Fores in Piccadilly
1:07:44 > 1:07:48and he's pointing to lots of prints of buildings in London
1:07:48 > 1:07:50and he's pointing to the Bank of England
1:07:50 > 1:07:52and saying, "Can I have that one?"
1:07:52 > 1:07:56The huge volunteer soldier is saying,
1:07:56 > 1:07:58- "No fear..."- "No." - "..off you go."
1:07:58 > 1:08:01And he's at least double his size.
1:08:01 > 1:08:03- There is no threat. - Of course, no threat.
1:08:05 > 1:08:08Beethoven developed his own doubts.
1:08:08 > 1:08:09As he became more powerful,
1:08:09 > 1:08:14Napoleon had the royal Fontainebleau Palace refurbished
1:08:14 > 1:08:15for his own personal use.
1:08:17 > 1:08:21It's what they called, "La vie de chateau".
1:08:21 > 1:08:22Quite agreeable, really.
1:08:25 > 1:08:30In 1799, a coup made Napoleon France's First Consul.
1:08:30 > 1:08:34Elections were suspended and he assumed near dictatorial powers.
1:08:35 > 1:08:38Napoleon had this beautiful room redesigned,
1:08:38 > 1:08:41after he had seamlessly taken over the king's old palace
1:08:41 > 1:08:43and placed himself in it.
1:08:43 > 1:08:45Beethoven, like many others at the time,
1:08:45 > 1:08:49had a love-hate relationship with Napoleon,
1:08:49 > 1:08:53wavering between admiration and disgust.
1:08:55 > 1:08:58But he clung on to the hope that, somehow, the French leader
1:08:58 > 1:09:01could make the ideals of the Revolution a reality.
1:09:02 > 1:09:05In 1803, he planned on naming his third symphony
1:09:05 > 1:09:07directly after Napoleon.
1:09:08 > 1:09:10A friend of Beethoven's wrote,
1:09:10 > 1:09:13"At the time, Beethoven held him in the highest esteem.
1:09:13 > 1:09:16"I saw a copy of the score lying on his table -
1:09:16 > 1:09:20"at the head of the title page was the word 'Bonaparte'."
1:09:23 > 1:09:25But the final straw for Beethoven came
1:09:25 > 1:09:29when Napoleon was crowned emperor in 1804.
1:09:29 > 1:09:33All in the cause of revolutionary ideals, obviously...
1:09:36 > 1:09:41Even at home at Fontainebleau, Napoleon liked to have a throne.
1:09:41 > 1:09:44In the actual ceremony, Napoleon wasn't crowned by the Pope.
1:09:44 > 1:09:49He took the crown from the Pope and put it on his own head.
1:09:49 > 1:09:51And to rub salt into the wound,
1:09:51 > 1:09:56as he did so, he swore an oath to liberty and equality.
1:09:56 > 1:09:58It is said that when Beethoven heard this,
1:09:58 > 1:10:01he flew into an absolute rage
1:10:01 > 1:10:04and began a foul-mouthed rant about Napoleon.
1:10:04 > 1:10:05Beethoven shouted,
1:10:05 > 1:10:09"He will trample over all human rights to humour his ambition!
1:10:09 > 1:10:12"He will place himself above all others and become a tyrant!"
1:10:13 > 1:10:16And he also scribbled out Napoleon's name
1:10:16 > 1:10:18from the cover of the front page
1:10:18 > 1:10:22of the Third Symphony, and he scribbled so hard in his anger
1:10:22 > 1:10:24that he went right through the paper.
1:10:30 > 1:10:34Sometime later that year, Beethoven changed the name of the work
1:10:34 > 1:10:37to Sinfonia Eroica, the "Heroic Symphony."
1:10:37 > 1:10:41But he still dedicated it to the memory of a great man
1:10:41 > 1:10:45and some believe that great man was still Napoleon.
1:10:47 > 1:10:49It can't have been an easy time for Beethoven,
1:10:49 > 1:10:52seeing his hopes for the French Revolution raised
1:10:52 > 1:10:55and then disappointed for a second time.
1:10:56 > 1:11:00So perhaps we can see this crisis of faith reflected
1:11:00 > 1:11:01in the Fifth Symphony's scherzo.
1:11:17 > 1:11:19Beethoven is in some eerie terrain here.
1:11:20 > 1:11:25To me, it's like looking at an image in a cracked mirror.
1:11:39 > 1:11:42The stopped sounds the horns are obliged to make
1:11:42 > 1:11:47produce this very pinched and unearthly sound.
1:11:56 > 1:12:02It's like a sort of stray bird of prey, a falcon or a crow
1:12:02 > 1:12:05or a rook coming by and cawing...
1:12:08 > 1:12:12..and it creates a sort of sensation of a barren landscape,
1:12:12 > 1:12:14a God-forsaken landscape.
1:12:18 > 1:12:21It seems that after Napoleon's coronation,
1:12:21 > 1:12:24Beethoven lost faith in the disillusioning realities
1:12:24 > 1:12:25of revolutionary politics.
1:12:28 > 1:12:31So how is the Fifth Symphony, written four years later,
1:12:31 > 1:12:34a political symphony in a wider sense?
1:12:35 > 1:12:39A clue may lie in the later work of Beethoven's great intellectual idol,
1:12:39 > 1:12:40Friedrich Schiller.
1:12:42 > 1:12:45He felt that the French Revolution had failed
1:12:45 > 1:12:51and he wrote dismissively, "A great moment has found a little people."
1:12:51 > 1:12:54But he did think alternatively that art could be used
1:12:54 > 1:12:56to enlighten humanity.
1:12:56 > 1:13:00He called this the "aesthetic education of man".
1:13:00 > 1:13:05This vision of moral character being improved by art,
1:13:05 > 1:13:08including music, had a huge impact on Beethoven.
1:13:14 > 1:13:20He ascribed strongly to the Schillerian idea of the artwork
1:13:20 > 1:13:26which would embody a power to inspire
1:13:26 > 1:13:33present and future generations, even through periods of repression.
1:13:33 > 1:13:36And so we find, actually, that in Beethoven's career,
1:13:36 > 1:13:39there's this Schillerian trend
1:13:39 > 1:13:45whereby his tragic works very rarely end in a tragic mode -
1:13:45 > 1:13:53rather, they posit an alternative to the dark forces.
1:13:53 > 1:13:58And there's perhaps no single work that does that quite so powerfully
1:13:58 > 1:14:00as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
1:14:03 > 1:14:07Schiller's theory had breathed new life into the ideals
1:14:07 > 1:14:09that Beethoven had long held dear.
1:14:11 > 1:14:13I think this may well be what Beethoven had in mind
1:14:13 > 1:14:16when he finally sat down to write the Fifth Symphony
1:14:16 > 1:14:18in the summer of 1807.
1:14:20 > 1:14:22We've talked a lot about the historical context
1:14:22 > 1:14:24of the Fifth Symphony,
1:14:24 > 1:14:28about the motivation behind writing it, the influences on it.
1:14:28 > 1:14:30But here we are, this is the location
1:14:30 > 1:14:34where Beethoven actually sat down and wrote it.
1:14:34 > 1:14:39This is the somewhat unlikely crucible of that extraordinary work.
1:14:42 > 1:14:45The building is called the Pasqualati House,
1:14:45 > 1:14:46after Beethoven's landlord.
1:14:53 > 1:14:57This recreated apartment is beautifully clean now,
1:14:57 > 1:15:01but that wasn't the case when Beethoven was writing here.
1:15:01 > 1:15:05Then, it was heroically messy and filthy.
1:15:05 > 1:15:08Beethoven was known for living in squalor.
1:15:08 > 1:15:13The Baron de Tremont wrote after an 1809 visit,
1:15:13 > 1:15:16"Picture to yourself the most disorderly
1:15:16 > 1:15:18"and dirty place imaginable -
1:15:18 > 1:15:23"an old grand piano, on which dust vied for place
1:15:23 > 1:15:26"with various pieces of manuscript and engraved music
1:15:26 > 1:15:30"and under the piano, I do not exaggerate,
1:15:30 > 1:15:32"an unemptied chamber pot."
1:15:35 > 1:15:38That's one period detail which the Pasqualati House
1:15:38 > 1:15:40have chosen not to recreate.
1:15:45 > 1:15:48Back in 1807, it wasn't just Beethoven's apartment
1:15:48 > 1:15:52that was in a mess. There were personal problems, as well.
1:15:54 > 1:15:56About the time he is writing his Fifth Symphony,
1:15:56 > 1:16:00his private life is in turmoil - yet another failed love affair.
1:16:00 > 1:16:02He'd fallen in love with a young pupil of his,
1:16:02 > 1:16:04and her sister wrote back saying no.
1:16:06 > 1:16:10And Beethoven's great patron in Vienna, Prince Lichnowsky,
1:16:10 > 1:16:13said, "Ludwig, I've invited some French officers to dinner tonight -
1:16:13 > 1:16:16"why don't you join us?"
1:16:16 > 1:16:19Beethoven, he had seen Vienna invaded by the French.
1:16:19 > 1:16:22The last thing he wanted to do, this great revolutionary
1:16:22 > 1:16:25and freedom lover, was sit down to dinner with French officers.
1:16:26 > 1:16:29And the conversation went around and one of the officers said...
1:16:29 > 1:16:32- IN FRENCH ACCENT:- "I hear you are a very good pianist
1:16:32 > 1:16:35"and composer, Herr Beethoven - will you give us a tune?"
1:16:35 > 1:16:39Beethoven stood up and said, "I do not play for people like you,"
1:16:39 > 1:16:41stormed out into the night
1:16:41 > 1:16:45and would not have anything more to do with Lichnowsky.
1:16:48 > 1:16:50So it's probably not too surprising
1:16:50 > 1:16:53that Beethoven was scrabbling for commissions in 1807.
1:16:55 > 1:16:57This aristocrat said, "Look, I say, Herr Beethoven,
1:16:57 > 1:17:00"you wouldn't write another symphony, would you?
1:17:00 > 1:17:04"Perhaps even dedicate it to me. I'll pay you five hundred florins."
1:17:04 > 1:17:06Beethoven actually said, "I'll do it".
1:17:07 > 1:17:10Is it possible that the main motivation for Beethoven
1:17:10 > 1:17:14writing his Fifth Symphony was simply to pay the rent?
1:17:14 > 1:17:15I don't think so
1:17:15 > 1:17:18and not when you look at this portrait which was painted
1:17:18 > 1:17:22just after he had written the first sketches for the Fifth Symphony.
1:17:22 > 1:17:26He's looking suitably Romantic and radical
1:17:26 > 1:17:30and this was a time in Vienna when one author wrote,
1:17:30 > 1:17:36"Simply to have sideburns meant that one was suspected of Jacobinism."
1:17:36 > 1:17:39It's a pretty good pair of sideburns.
1:17:39 > 1:17:43And he did keep the Cherubini-inspired first four notes
1:17:43 > 1:17:46from those first sketches
1:17:46 > 1:17:49and he kept the draft of the third movement.
1:17:55 > 1:17:57In that sketchbook, Beethoven was vague
1:17:57 > 1:18:01about the form that the Fifth Symphony's finale would take.
1:18:01 > 1:18:04"Maybe some kind of march," he scribbled
1:18:04 > 1:18:07and after the scherzo's gloomy conclusion,
1:18:07 > 1:18:09a march it was,
1:18:09 > 1:18:12one based on the music of the French Revolution
1:18:12 > 1:18:14and containing another coded message.
1:18:18 > 1:18:21There's a very hushed feeling,
1:18:21 > 1:18:24as though something ominous is about to happen.
1:18:24 > 1:18:27It's really that sort of the calm before the storm.
1:18:37 > 1:18:43And eventually the timpani, the kettle drums, emerge from the gloom
1:18:43 > 1:18:48with a crescendo and then the whole sky erupts with this blaze of sound
1:18:48 > 1:18:50and you're into the last movement.
1:19:08 > 1:19:11And he takes what seems to be
1:19:11 > 1:19:14a fairly straightforward march of the French Revolution.
1:19:14 > 1:19:17He then, in typical Beethoven fashion,
1:19:17 > 1:19:22writes variations and elaborations of it.
1:19:22 > 1:19:26Subversively and surreptitiously,
1:19:26 > 1:19:28he introduces a new theme
1:19:28 > 1:19:34- which turns... - HE HUMS NEW THEME
1:19:35 > 1:19:38And thanks to dear old Mr Schmitz back in the 1920s,
1:19:38 > 1:19:41we can pinpoint the origins of that
1:19:41 > 1:19:45and it's Mr Rouget de Lisle, Hymne Dithyrambique.
1:19:45 > 1:19:48Rouget de Lisle was the French revolutionary composer
1:19:48 > 1:19:51who composed the La Marseillaise and, sure enough, it's...
1:19:51 > 1:19:54- HE SINGS:- # Chantons la liberte, la liberte. #
1:19:55 > 1:19:58During his rehearsals for the Fifth Symphony,
1:19:58 > 1:20:03John Eliot showed us what this revolutionary song sounds like.
1:20:03 > 1:20:07# Chantons la liberte
1:20:07 > 1:20:11# Couronnons sa statue
1:20:11 > 1:20:15# Comme un nouveau Titan
1:20:15 > 1:20:19# Le crime est foudroye... #
1:20:21 > 1:20:25If you listen carefully, in the last movement of the Fifth Symphony,
1:20:25 > 1:20:27this is what you hear...
1:20:28 > 1:20:30THEY PLAY FOURTH MOVEMENT
1:20:30 > 1:20:33THEY PLAY MELODY SIMILAR TO "HYMNE DITHYRAMBIQUE"
1:20:38 > 1:20:43So there you have a completely impossible statement,
1:20:43 > 1:20:49a paean to liberty, to freedom, in repressive Vienna.
1:21:02 > 1:21:06That gets submerged in so many conventional performances.
1:21:09 > 1:21:12I think it's really crucial that the audience clocks that,
1:21:12 > 1:21:14that they register it.
1:21:24 > 1:21:27We had a political tract in the opening movement
1:21:27 > 1:21:29all about the rights of man
1:21:29 > 1:21:31and here we have liberty.
1:21:40 > 1:21:45So Beethoven is doing two of the great
1:21:45 > 1:21:49three-motto symbols of the French Revolution.
1:21:53 > 1:21:57But could it just be coincidence that Beethoven uses this theme?
1:21:57 > 1:22:00How do we know that the musical reference to Rouget de Lisle
1:22:00 > 1:22:01is deliberate?
1:22:03 > 1:22:05John Eliot believes that the proof lies
1:22:05 > 1:22:08in Beethoven's handwritten score for the Fifth Symphony.
1:22:11 > 1:22:14It's extraordinarily moving looking at this facsimile
1:22:14 > 1:22:15of Beethoven's score of the Fifth Symphony
1:22:15 > 1:22:23because, on the face of it, it's anarchic, it's completely zany.
1:22:23 > 1:22:28It's like a sort of force-ten gale going through a forest of bamboos
1:22:28 > 1:22:32with all these crossings out and things leaning forward
1:22:32 > 1:22:35and we're right in the thick of the last movement
1:22:35 > 1:22:38and here, for the first time,
1:22:38 > 1:22:42Beethoven insinuates through the textures
1:22:42 > 1:22:48this little quotation from Rouget de Lisle's Hymne Dithyrambique,
1:22:48 > 1:22:52with the critical words "freedom", "la liberte".
1:22:52 > 1:22:56- HE SINGS:- # "La liberte, la liberte. #
1:22:56 > 1:23:00It stands out very, very clearly
1:23:00 > 1:23:04in contrast to all this rather messy ornamentation
1:23:04 > 1:23:06and elaboration and crossings out,
1:23:06 > 1:23:10So it's as though they are like structural girders
1:23:10 > 1:23:15that hold the whole fabric and the edifice of the building into place.
1:23:21 > 1:23:23And from then onwards, it's a great sprint to the line,
1:23:23 > 1:23:30it's a huge celebration of an individual quest for freedom,
1:23:30 > 1:23:34but also the realisation of a political utopia.
1:23:51 > 1:23:55He bought into the values of the French Revolution
1:23:55 > 1:23:59at a time when those ideas were incendiary in Europe.
1:24:01 > 1:24:06So he comes up with this brilliant, but extremely dangerous strategy,
1:24:06 > 1:24:09of investing his abstract music
1:24:09 > 1:24:13with deeply subversive political content.
1:24:17 > 1:24:19So what was the public reaction at the premiere
1:24:19 > 1:24:21to this musical call to arms?
1:24:21 > 1:24:25Did it have the same revolutionary impact as Schiller's The Robbers,
1:24:25 > 1:24:27as Beethoven may have hoped?
1:24:28 > 1:24:30Back to Vienna's Theater an der Wien
1:24:30 > 1:24:35to find out what happened on that evening in December 1808.
1:24:38 > 1:24:42What do you think the audience thought of the Fifth?
1:24:42 > 1:24:43They didn't like it.
1:24:43 > 1:24:48We know that it was received well, as in friendly, you know?
1:24:48 > 1:24:52They said it wasn't bad, but they were not enthusiastic about it.
1:24:52 > 1:24:57- Right.- Also, later, we have accounts of Goethe, you know, the big poet,
1:24:57 > 1:25:00who said "You know, it's nice, but it's too much.
1:25:00 > 1:25:04"It's sort of a house breaking down."
1:25:04 > 1:25:07So it's too loud, it's too much, it's over the top.
1:25:07 > 1:25:12So people were not exactly happy about what they heard.
1:25:12 > 1:25:14At the end of all that, how did Beethoven feel?
1:25:14 > 1:25:19Was he disappointed or cross? Well, how cross was he?
1:25:19 > 1:25:22Well, quite cross. I don't think he was very happy at all.
1:25:26 > 1:25:30It was a few years before the Fifth began to be appreciated
1:25:30 > 1:25:34in Central Europe, as the perfect example of Romantic individualism,
1:25:34 > 1:25:37with the emphasis on Beethoven's personal struggle.
1:25:39 > 1:25:41But the response at the premiere in Paris,
1:25:41 > 1:25:45birthplace of the ideals of the Revolution, was very different.
1:25:47 > 1:25:51The audience there recognised the musical references
1:25:51 > 1:25:54and embraced the symphony wholeheartedly.
1:25:54 > 1:25:57From then on, the Fifth became a firm favourite
1:25:57 > 1:25:59with French audiences.
1:25:59 > 1:26:03I think I'm with them and with John Eliot Gardiner
1:26:03 > 1:26:06in seeing the ideals of the French Revolution
1:26:06 > 1:26:10as intrinsic to the power, to the force, of the Fifth Symphony.
1:26:10 > 1:26:12That was certainly the view of one listener
1:26:12 > 1:26:15at that first Paris performance.
1:26:15 > 1:26:18He was an old soldier, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars,
1:26:18 > 1:26:21and he listened to the piece and at the end of the finale,
1:26:21 > 1:26:25he rose to his feet and shouted, "C'est l'Empereur!
1:26:25 > 1:26:27"Vive l'Empereur!"
1:26:33 > 1:26:35When you're actually performing it
1:26:35 > 1:26:39you're caught up in his vision,
1:26:39 > 1:26:44you're caught up with his hugely daring exposition of human capacity
1:26:44 > 1:26:47to overcome the slings and arrows of fate.
1:26:55 > 1:26:59And if you give it your all, as this orchestra does,
1:26:59 > 1:27:02and as I try to do when performing this piece,
1:27:02 > 1:27:08the rewards are immense, but you feel total identification
1:27:08 > 1:27:12with the vision that actually is inspiring the piece
1:27:12 > 1:27:14as it's unfolding.
1:27:20 > 1:27:25He's moulding clay, musical clay in such a way that it can only create
1:27:25 > 1:27:29a monument of extraordinary conviction
1:27:29 > 1:27:31and that's really the secret
1:27:31 > 1:27:35and that's the real substance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.