Coriolan (Beethoven)

Coriolan , opus 62, of Ludwig van Beethoven, is a symphonic opening in C minor which was made up in 1807. It acts with Egmont (1810) of most famous of the openings of Beethoven and, by its expressive and dramatic power, of one of the works most characteristic of the style known as “heroic” of the type-setter.

The opening Coriolan was dedicated to Heinrich Joseph von Collin, dramatic author Austrian which had written in 1802 a Tragédie entitled Coriolanus and inspired by the biography of Plutarque. Beethoven and Collin initially intended to make EC opening an incidental music to accompany the introduction by the part, but it is as symphonic opening which work was created, and it remained it.

Argument

The Hake part takes as a starting point the history of Caïus Marcius, general Roman who had taken the name of Coriolan to have taken the volsque city of Corioles in 493 av. J.C. Exiled of Rome after being itself violently quarreled with the powerful orators of the plebs lately instituted, Coriolan makes allegiance with the Volsques that it had formerly fought. He persuades them to break the treaty passed with Rome and from raising an army of invasion. When the volsques troops carried out by Coriolan threaten Rome, the Matrone S Romans, from which his Volumnia wife and her Veturia mother, are sent to dissuade it to attack. Seeing his/her mother, his wife and their children to throw itself to its feet, Coriolan bends, brings back its troops to the borders of the Roman territory, and commits suicide. It is of this part of the history that Beethoven was inspired to write its opening.

Music

Two topic S principal enamel the opening: the first, vehement and powerful, in C minor, represents the savage will and the determination of Coriolan in front of the walls of Rome. The second, alleviated and cordial, in major E flat, symbolizes the prayers of the women. The two topics follow one another in the exposure and the réexposition, giving the effect of the hesitation. After a short recall of the first topic, the coded concludes work by a dissolution from the first topic, evocation intense of the heroic sacrifice of Coriolan.

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