| Sumario: | Michael Tilson Tilson Thomas, conducting a movement by movement "tour" of Beethoven's Third. Tilson Thomas explains what was going on in Beethoven's life and provides various explanations of why the music is the way it is. Comments are added by some of the SFSO's musicians, including their approach to playing Beethoven. I had long known of Beethoven's original intention of dedicating the symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Ludwig saw as "a leader come from the people." Later, of course, when Bonaparte crowned himself emperor, Beethoven literaly scratched out the dedication to Napoleon, and it has been hereafter know simply as the Eroica, or heroic symphony. What I didn't know, which Micael Tilson Thomas explains, is that Beethoven was confronting the reality of his impending deafness, just at the time he was writing this symphony. He explains how the symphony includes Beethoven's anguish and (unfounded) shame at being a deaf musician. Yet he goes on to explain that Beethoven faces this demon, and the music tells us that he goes on with life. Thus Beethoven's Eroica is heroic in more ways than is commonly known
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