Communications

Abstract

The review by Barry Cooper of my book Beethoven: A Political Artist in Revolutionary Times in Fontes Artis Musicae (Vol. 68, No. 3 [ July–September 2021], 273–276) contains errors. Professor Cooper writes that ‘the theory that the Eroica Sketchbook was begun in 1802 rather than 1803 (p. 65) is based on flawed evidence and has been comprehensively discredited’. However, the publication of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Sketchbook: A Critical Edition, edited by Lewis Lockwood and Alan Gosman (2013), and the literature cited therein, indeed supports a dating of 1802, which has not been ‘comprehensively discredited’. Cooper also writes that ‘the contredance . . . used in the finale of the Eroica was not composed until after Beethoven’s ballet Prometheus of 1801’, which makes no sense since that very theme already assumes prominence in the ballet, to be later absorbed into the very different context of the symphony. Furthermore, the gripping narrative of Beethoven refusing to play for French officers and leaving Grätz in defiance of his patron Prince Lichnowsky in October 1806 is not merely ‘a compilation from a number of unconfirmed recollections’ but an event that can now be vividly re-envisioned from Beethoven’s rain-stained music manuscripts and from the diary of the young poet Joseph von Eichendorff, who reported ‘threatening weather from the West’ with lightning and thunder coinciding with the ‘bolt out of the blue’ of Napoleon’s decisive victory at Auerstädt and Jena.