The DWR Quote of the Day – John Pilgers

@JZ

I agree. It is getting closer and closer to remembrance day and the patriotic nonsense will start to ramp up and it will make me sick to my stomach.

There is no glory in war unless you define glory as gutted young men sobbing for their mothers as they die alone in the mud.

:/

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@JZ

Beethoven had it right when he excised his name from Eroica.

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@JZ

Originally, Beethoven was quite impressed with the French Revolution and all ideals springing from it. He saw Napoleon as a crusader for human rights and justice. He dedicated his 3rd symphony to NP but when NP crowned himself emperor of France falling in line with traditional ancien power structures, Beethoven, in disgust, tore his dedication off the symphony.

Or as wikipedia tells it:

According to Beethoven’s pupil and assistant, Ferdinand Ries, when Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor of the French in May 1804, Beethoven became disgusted and went to the table where the completed score lay. He took hold of the title-page and tore it up in rage. This is the account of the scene as told by Ries:
“ In writing this symphony Beethoven had been thinking of Buonaparte, but Buonaparte while he was First Consul. At that time Beethoven had the highest esteem for him and compared him to the greatest consuls of ancient Rome. Not only I, but many of Beethoven’s closer friends, saw this symphony on his table, beautifully copied in manuscript, with the word “Buonaparte” inscribed at the very top of the title-page and “Ludwig van Beethoven” at the very bottom. … I was the first to tell him the news that Buonaparte had declared himself Emperor, whereupon he broke into a rage and exclaimed, “So he is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, he will tread under foot all the rights of man, indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men, become a tyrant!” Beethoven went to the table, seized the top of the title-page, tore it in half and threw it on the floor. The page had to be re-copied and it was only now that the symphony received the title “Sinfonia eroica.”[4] ”

There exists also the copy of the score made by a copyist, where the words Intitolata Bonaparte (‘titled Bonaparte’) are scratched out, but four lines below that were later added in pencil the words Geschriben auf Bonaparte (‘written in honor of Bonaparte’). Further, in August 1804, merely three months after the legendary tearing-up scene, Beethoven wrote to his publisher that “The title of the symphony is really Bonaparte.” The final title that was applied to the work when it was first published in October, 1806, was Sinfonia Eroica…composta per festeggiare il sovvenire di un grand Uomo (“heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man”).[5] In addition, Schindler tells us that upon hearing of the Emperor’s death in Saint Helena in 1821, Beethoven proclaimed “I wrote the music for this sad event seventeen years ago” – referring to the Funeral March (second movement).

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