In touch with Beethoven // Compagnia di punto

Eroica - the heroic symphony! The ink on the score was not yet completely dry when the ambivalence about the heroic was to become apparent in the greatest symphony ever written: The work was inspired by two sources: The spirit of the light-bringer Prometheus and the ideals of freedom, equality and brotherhood of the French Revolution! Napoleon Bonaparte's flags flying through Europe nourished the hope that the victorious hero would free the peoples of Europe from the fetters of the "ancien régime", and so Beethoven, himself an ardent supporter of Napoleon, dedicated his "Sinfonia Eroica" to the seemingly godlike hero.

But the revolution devoured its children, Napoleon had himself crowned emperor, and in abysmal disappointment over just "another tyrant" Beethoven violently scratched the dedication "intitolata Bonaparte" from the title page of the score. Since then, the symphony has been like a touchstone for the epoch in which it is played, and the interpretation of the heroic in Beethoven's Third Symphony says a lot about the spirit of the times in which it is played.

We too are faced with the question of what heroism means in our days. To get as close as possible to the subject, we ask people who have experienced the ambivalence of heroism first-hand: Soldiers from the German Veterans Association. They know war, life and death up close and they know about the power of music in times of inner and outer struggles. Their stories carry the spirit of our project, their pictures inspire the films of Theo Ross as well as the composition of Leonard Bartussek, and their experiences are reflected in our interpretation of the heroic symphony - Eroica.