Horn and Trumpet as Topical Signifiers

Abstract

It is one of music’s most celebrated witticisms. Just before the recapitulation of the first movement of Beethoven’s Sinfonia eroica, at a point where the modulation has reached the dominant chord that precedes the entry of the first theme, that theme is heard, prematurely, on the horn, though it does not fit the harmony at that point and in any case was played originally by the cellos (Example 1). In early performances, audiences thought the player was in error. It is certainly a singular effect. But as Sherlock Holmes once said, the singular is always important.