One of Beethoven's most celebrated works, the Eroica symphony is a large-scale composition that marked the beginning of the composer's innovative "middle period".

[1][2] Composed mainly in 1803–1804, the work broke boundaries in symphonic form, length, harmony, emotional and cultural content.

[citation needed] The first movement, in 34 time, is in sonata form, with typical performances between 12 and 18 minutes long depending on interpretation and whether the exposition repeat is played.

The conductor Kenneth Woods has noted that the opening movement of Eroica has been inspired by and modeled on Mozart's Symphony No.

The melody is finished by the first violins, with a syncopated series of Gs (which forms a tritone with C♯ of the cellos and a diminished chord).

The climactic moment of the exposition arrives when the music is interrupted by six consecutive sforzando hemiola chords (mm.

This pattern would be consistent with that found later in the development, in which the climactic moment leads to a new lyrical theme that launches an extended section.

The development section (m. 154),[b] like the rest of the movement, is characterized by harmonic and rhythmic tension from dissonant chords and long passages of syncopated rhythm.

The first section of the development is based around various thematic explorations and counterpoint, including a new scalar figure in bars 165-173 and a fugato derived from the main theme of the second group (mm.

Commenters have stated that this "outburst of rage ... forms the kernel of the whole movement", and Beethoven reportedly got out in his beat when conducting the orchestra in Christmas 1804, forcing the confused players to stop and go back.

In the 19th century, this was thought to be a mistake; some conductors assumed the horn notes were written in the tenor clef (B♭–D–B♭–F) while others altered the second violin harmony to G (chord of the tonic), an error that eventually appeared in an early printed version.

[13]: 70  However, it can also be analyzed as having five parts, a combination of ternary, rondo, and sonata form:[10] Musically, the thematic solemnity of the second movement has lent itself for use as a funeral march, proper.

78, 100)[8]: 72  and eventually ends with a final soft statement of the main theme (m. 238) that "crumbles into short phrases interspersed with silences".

[13]: 71  The scherzo is then repeated in shortened form,[8]: 78  except that very notably the second occurrence of the downward unison motif is changed to duple time (mm.

[13]: 75  The theme used in the fourth movement, including its bass line, originate from the seventh of Beethoven's 12 Contredanses for Orchestra, WoO 14,[21] and also from the Finale to his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, Op.

Thus, it is argued that Beethoven's initial conception for a complete symphony in E♭ – including its first three movements – emerged directly from the Op.

3–6) has thus been traced back to the bass line theme of the Opus 35 variations (E♭, B♭↓, B♭↑, E♭) by way of intermediate versions found in one of Beethoven's sketchbooks.

Alternatively, the first movement's resemblance to the overture to the comic opera Bastien und Bastienne (1768), composed by twelve-year-old W. A. Mozart, has been noted.

[24] Beethoven originally dedicated the third symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte, who he believed embodied the democratic and anti-monarchical ideals of the French Revolution.

In 1806, the score was published under the Italian title Sinfonia Eroica ... composta per festeggiare il sovvenire di un grande Uomo ("Heroic Symphony, Composed to celebrate the memory of a great man").

[27] Composed from the autumn of 1803 until the spring of 1804, the earliest rehearsals and performances of the third symphony were private, and took place in the Vienna palace of Beethoven's noble patron, Prince Lobkowitz.

[28] The fee paid to Beethoven by Prince Lobkowitz would also have secured further private performances of the symphony that summer on his Bohemian estates, Eisenberg (Jezeří) and Raudnitz (Roudnice).

The first public performance was on 7 April 1805, at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna; for which concert the announced (theoretical) key for the symphony was Dis (D♯ major, 9 sharps).

The other group utterly denies this work any artistic value ... [t]hrough strange modulations and violent transitions ... with abundant scratchings in the bass, with three horns and so forth, a true if not desirable originality can indeed be gained without much effort.

"[32] Another said that the symphony was "for the most part so shrill and complicated that only those who worship the failings and merits of this composer with equal fire, which at times borders on the ridiculous, could find pleasure in it".

[33] But a reviewer just two years later described the Eroica simply as "the greatest, most original, most artistic and, at the same time, most interesting of all symphonies".

"[35] Another agreed that "[t]he finale pleased less, and that "the artist often wanted only to play games with the audience without taking its enjoyment into account simply in order to unloose a strange mood and, at the same time, to let his originality sparkle thereby".

A copy of the score with Beethoven's handwritten notes and remarks, including the famous scratched-out dedication to Napoleon on the cover page, is housed in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.

Thematically, it covers more emotional ground than Beethoven's earlier symphonies, and thus marks a key milestone in the transition between Classicism and Romanticism that would define Western art music in the early decades of the nineteenth century.

[citation needed] The second movement especially displays a great emotional range, from the misery of the funeral march theme, to the relative solace of happier, major-key episodes.