Coriolan Overture

Anyone doing even a cursory Google search for information on Beethoven will inevitably encounter one word consistently within the first paragraph of any article: “heroic.” While Beethoven himself is widely considered a hero for having persevered in composing despite ever-increasing deafness, his music is also described as heroic, in that it pushed hard against the boundaries set by the musical conventions of its time. Beethoven’s works were bigger and bolder. He stretched the traditional, Classical-period rules of composition beyond what any composer had done previously. Abandoning the traditions of elegance and restraint, he wrote works of shattering sadness and ecstatic joy. Beethoven “let it all hang out” in a way that none before him had, and for this, he is now idolized as a hero who revolutionized music.

Beethoven himself also fixated on leaders he saw as heroic. His Third Symphony was originally dedicated to Napoleon, whom Beethoven initially admired greatly. When the Frenchman declared himself emperor, however, Beethoven angrily erased Napoleon’s name from the cover page of the symphony’s score—with such ferocity that it left a hole in the paper. Beethoven craved heroism, and when his heroes disappointed him, his judgement was fierce.

Perhaps it is not surprising then that in 1807, when Beethoven needed an opening work for a private concert to be held at the palace of his patron Prince Lobkowitz, he turned to Shakespeare’s fallen hero, the Roman general Coriolanus, who legendarily took up arms against his homeland in the fifth century BC. Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, written around 1608, is a political tale of greed and hubris as the one-time war hero is exiled after expressing his hatred of the common people. In anger, he returns to try to conquer his former city. When he and his army reach the city gates, the Romans, as a last resort, send Coriolanus’ mother out to plead with him to stop his assault. She eventually prevails, after which Coriolanus is murdered. This story had also been the inspiration for an 1804 play titled Coriolan by Heinrich Joseph von Collin. Collin’s play had enjoyed some limited success and was being revived for a one-night-only performance at Lobkowitz’s palace. Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto would also be on the program, and it may be that Collin’s play was revived that night specifically to present Beethoven’s overture. Regardless of the intent, the overture immediately outshone Collin’s play. While Collin’s work has long ago lapsed into obscurity, the overture has retained its popularity as Beethoven’s searing eight-minute description of the fallen hero Coriolanus stirred far more emotion than Collin’s full-length production.

At the opening of the overture, we meet Coriolanus, the swaggering hero, in three sets of dramatic chords. An agitated melody then begins in the strings as we sense Coriolanus’ anger and a general sense of foreboding. A second theme eventually emerges, much more lyrical, representing Coriolanus’ mother and her pleas for her son to stop his assault. These two contrasting themes, one dark and foreboding, the other tragically pleading, form the basis of the entire overture. In contrast to many of Beethoven’s other “heroic” works, however, this piece does not end triumphantly. Rather, it culminates in a searing final restatement of the opening chords as Coriolanus dies. (In Shakespeare’s play, Coriolanus is murdered. In Collin’s version however, Coriolanus commits suicide.) A lesser composer might have ended the work there, but Beethoven, in a stroke of genius, instead allows the music to slowly disintegrate as the life ebbs from the fallen hero. In the end, as Coriolanus’ heartbeat fades away, we are left with three soft pizzicato plucks from the string section...and a lesson in the futility of greed that is deafening.