Stéphane Denève conducts Beethoven’s Eroica

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 Eroica – New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève  – New World Heart (Photograph: Alex Markow)

James Lee III: Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan (2011), Copland: Lincoln Portrait (1942), Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat main, Op. 55, Eroica; New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève, Ziwei Ma, Joshua Malina; New World Heart, Miami, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras on 4 October 2025

In his newest Letter from Florida Robert J Carreras is made considerate by a programnme which turned the watchful lens of historical past on human bondage and oppression with up to date composer James Lee III alongside Copland and Beethoven

Composers James Lee III, Aaron Copland, and Ludwig van Beethoven – a curious consort at first look, it’s agreed. Let’s look nearer with the assistance of this system curated by New World Symphony (NWS) for this night. 

Lee’s Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan [inspired by the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman] and Copland’s Lincoln Portrait flip the watchful lens of historical past on human bondage and oppression. The backstory of Beethoven’s Third Symphony explains how he presaged the human bondage and oppression of tyranny, and in so doing turned away from Napoleon Bonaparte I.

As a centuries-removed compatriot of “le petit corporal,” NWS Creative Director and Principal Conductor Stéphane Denève is in an distinctive place to recount that Beethoven needed this symphony to be a celebration of Napoleon’s revolutionary and democratic beliefs. Why Napoleon was himself a revolutionary, nearly jailed at one time for it.

New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève  – outdoors New World Heart (Photograph: Alex Markow)

Outdoors the Michael Tilson Thomas Efficiency Corridor, to a modest gathering at SoundScape Park and to passersby on South Seaside, Denève toured by way of to the daybreak of nineteenth century France and Germany. Beethoven’s working title for his third symphony, “Bonaparte.” 

Quickly working out of higher angels guided by a north star, Napoleon took a distinct path. You’ll recall that “boney” went on to pledge an oath to behave as Consul for Life. Not a lot later, he proclaimed himself the primary emperor of France, swiping the crown from the Pope at Notre Dame and laying it on his personal head. 

There’s a colossal portray depicting this occasion, two of them to be precise, in France. You’ll be able to stand in entrance of it your self. Simply don’t get too shut; when it falls, it’s going to flatten you. You’ll by no means guess who this portray was commissioned and redacted by, expensive reader. To Beethoven, it was crystal clear. 

Jacques-Louis David – The Coronation of Napoleon (1805-1807) [The original was commissioned by Napoleon, a copy was commissioned by American entrepreneurs and was returned to France in 1947]

If Napoleon may, he did – and, as a lot of his countrymen swore comparable oaths as their liege to France, in his successes the identical discovered themselves on each side of the guillotine. Ludwig van Beethoven would take no half within the masquerades of tyranny, and on this approach born is “Eroica.” 

NWS turns in the direction of “Eroica” on the opposite facet of this live performance. For now, an unscheduled flip of occasions – Denève leads a modest assortment of brass and percussion in a ceremonial rendition of Copland’s Fanfare for the Widespread Man. They had been on a propped-up stage there, al fresco, over the garden earlier than this livestreamed and WALLCAST® night turned again contained in the corridor.

From the outset, NWS had been on their entrance toes for James Lee III and conductor Ziwei Ma. Spirited and fierce, these gamers and Ma minced few musical notes or emotions: this was going to be an evening to recollect. Ma’s approach is traditional, her actions modest, sleek and attuned. 

By means of Lee’s music, we’re to really feel a slave oppressed; we’re to really feel fleeing throughout state strains – swamplands, wildlife, warmth and humidity, bitter chilly and frost– a whole bunch of miles, weeks and weeks, as masters and servants give chase; we’re to really feel the tense tug-of-war between the potential for recapture and the potential for secure passage on the north star. We’re to really feel freedom – “chuphshah” in Hebrew – by way of Lee’s Harriet’s Drive to Canaan. 

Inside their means, this orchestra performed to those themes, integral elements of Lee’s cri de coeur to the enslaved. As a gaggle, outdoors of their means is the practiced and sustained quantity and technical expertise that include up-close listening to and taking part in with profession, crack gamers. Provided that, the spirituals embedded by Lee come off the web page, up and thru the sound-waves and heart-waves. Provided that, the sampling of I want I used to be in Dixieland peacefully transfers its energy to the sampling of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

“You toil and work and earn bread, and I will eat it” – phrases in all probability spat out by Abraham Lincoln in a presidential debate to elucidate the purpose of tyranny. Phrases spoken by actor Joshua Malina, the narrator for Copland’s Lincoln Portrait right here – each his tenor and NWS that means to maintain the hearth lit by human beings like Harriet Tubman, placing it below these seats and elevating the roof. Search for (Chuphshah!) for what we’re to really feel in Lincoln Portrait. 

We acknowledge and really feel Abe Lincoln by way of his written and spoken phrases; yep, that’s him alright. We all know he felt the enslaved, a union consecrated within the promised land. And thru their taking part in, we all know NWS has it in them – the sign Napoleon misplaced contact with. NWS transferred the dynamic variations in Copland’s Lincoln Portrait proper on by way of to Beethoven.

The stage-filling instrumentation of the twentieth century cleared for the historically-informed orchestra of Beethoven. Then, the hammer strokes signalled the beginning of Beethoven’s Third Symphony. Denève stunned, with nary a pause between chords, the second just about tied to the succeeding cellos. A “Large Bang” worthy of reminiscence. Utilizing fashionable parlance, this bop must activate a dime usually; the transition between the primary motion and the Marcia Funebre gives a pointed instance of the place these younger gamers are headed. 

Beethoven revolutionized the follow of lengthy actions, every with prolonged codas. The primary motion of Eroica ends with a buildup – each orchestral fireplace burning – balmy, toasty, steaming, then burning once more. NWS gamers ought to have expended their sources, they usually did. Denève took a notably lengthy pause, a calm down, in order that his gamers may regroup and reposition for the solemnity of the second motion.  Denève helped flip the flames down low by actively quieting them. 

Making nice enjoyable out of timing expectations, it seems Denève makes an attempt to disguise and shock entrances within the Scherzo now, and to a lesser extent within the Allegro molto after. Beethoven might need expressed modest parental admiration. In Beethoven’s last nod to the hero changing into “Eroica,” NWS and Denève  took to the modest musical breakdowns with take care of the strains and rhythmic patterns, cruising up the sear into the fervent finale. 

Turning again a web page on Beethoven’s Third Symphony, and searching nearer nonetheless, possibly you’re prompted to ask, “What did Beethoven really feel…about Napoleon?” Effectively, Beethoven was neither a warlock, nor a wizard, nor a psychic or conjurer, and he didn’t wait to search out out. 

Advantage has a approach of seeing at the hours of darkness; and darkness doesn’t “like advantage very a lot both. Napoleon made it crystal clear. Beethoven in all probability feared working out of higher angels that may assist him really feel higher, like Napoleon did. It appears clear Beethoven didn’t ever wish to really feel like Napoleon did. Would you?

Copland: Lincoln Portrait – Joshua Malina, New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève  – New World Heart (Photograph: Alex Markow)

James Lee III was born in St. Joseph, Michigan and raised within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Lee started his musical research as a piano pupil. After incomes a bachelor’s diploma in piano efficiency from the College of Michigan, he was suggested by a good friend – composer Gabriela Lena Frank – to enter the college’s Grasp of Music program in composition, the place he earned each grasp’s and doctoral levels in composition. His profession started in earnest when his dissertation work Past Rivers of Imaginative and prescient (2005) was premiered by Leonard Slatkin and the Nationwide Symphony Orchestra on the Kennedy Heart in Washington, D.C. in October 2006. A second early work, A Completely different Soldier’s Story, was premiered by Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in December 2008. Lee at present lives in Maryland, the place he’s a professor of concept and composition at Morgan State College.

His composition lecturers included Michael Daugherty, William Bolcom, Brilliant Sheng, Betsy Jolas, Susan Botti, Erik Santos and James Aikman. Lee additionally served as a composition fellow on the Tanglewood Music Heart in the summertime of 2002, learning with Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gandolfi, Steven Mackey, Kaija Saariaho, and Stefan Asbury.