Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven: Studies in the Music of the Classical Period

BATHIA CHURGIN

In a letter dated 22 October 1803 from Ferdinand Ries, then Beethoven's pupil, to the music publisher Simrock, Ries offered a new Beethoven symphony for publication which he described as follows:

Die Symphonie will er Ihnen für 100 Gulden verkaufen. Es ist nach seiner einigen Äußerung das größte Werk, welches er bisher schrieb. Beethoven spielte sie mir neulich, und ich glaube Himmel und Erde muss unter einem zittern bei ihrer Auffrührung. Er hat viel Lust, selbe Bonaparte zu dedizieren, wenn nicht, weil Lobkowitz sie auf ein halb Jahr haben und 400 Gulden geben will, so wird sie Bonaparte genannt . . .

He will sell the symphony to you for 100 Gulden. It is in his estimation the greatest work which he has written until now. Beethoven played it for me recently, and I believe that heaven and earth must have trembled at this performance. He wants very much to dedicate it to Bonaparte; if not, since Lobkowitz wants it for half a year and is willing to give 400 Gulden for it, he will title it Bonaparte . . .¹

With these dramatic words, Ries made the first detailed reference to one of the greatest of all symphonies, the Eroica Symphony, Op. 55. The symphony was sketched mainly in the so-called Eroica Sketchbook--Landsberg 6-- from about May or June 1803 to the early autumn.² It was not published

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