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Wellington's Victory, or theBattle of Vitoria (also called theBattle Symphony; in German:Wellingtons Sieg oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria),Op. 91,[1] is a 15-minute-long orchestral work composed byLudwig van Beethoven to commemorate theMarquess (later Duke) of Wellington's victory overJoseph Bonaparte at theBattle of Vitoria in Spain on 21 June 1813 and theGerman campaign of 1813 in Germany thus ending the rule of Bonaparte'sConfederation of the Rhine and the birth of theGerman Confederation. It is known sometimes as "The Battle Symphony" or "The Battle of Vitoria", and was dedicated to the Prince Regent, later KingGeorge IV. Composition stretched from August to first week of October 1813, and the piece proved to be a substantial moneymaker for Beethoven.
The autograph manuscript of the work is preserved in theBerlin State Library.
After the Battle of Vitoria, Beethoven's friendJohann Nepomuk Maelzel talked him into writing a composition commemorating this battle that he could notate on his 'mechanical orchestra', thepanharmonicon, a contraption that was able to play many of the military band instruments of the day. However, Beethoven wrote a composition for large band (100 musicians), so large that Maelzel could not build a machine large enough to perform the music. As an alternative, Beethoven rewrote theSiegessinfonie for orchestra, added a first part and renamed the workWellington's Victory.
The piece was first performed inVienna on 8 December 1813 at a concert to benefitAustrian andBavarian soldiers wounded at theBattle of Hanau, with Beethoven conducting. It was immediately popular with concertgoers. Also on the programme were the premiere of hisSymphony No. 7 and a work performed by Maelzel's mechanical trumpeter.[2]
This performance, which featured 100 musicians, has been noted as being particularly loud. Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim described it as a "sonic assault on the listener" and the "beginning of a musical arms race for ever louder... symphonic performance", quoting an unnamed attendee as remarking that the performance was "seemingly designed to make the listener as deaf as its composer". Musicologist Frédéric Döhl described performances of this work as "not like an evening at theBerlin Philharmonie, but rather like a modern-day rock concert".[3]
Wellington's Victory is something of a musical novelty. The fullorchestration calls for twoflutes, onepiccolo, twooboes, twoclarinets, twobassoons, fourhorns, sixtrumpets, threetrombones,timpani, a large percussion battery (includingmuskets and otherartillerysound effects), and astring section ofviolins I and II,violas,cellos, anddouble basses.
In the orchestral percussion section one player plays the timpani, the other three play thecymbals,bass drum andtriangle. On stage there are two 'sides', British and French, both playing the same instruments: twoside drums (englisches/französisches Trommeln in thescore), two bass drums (Kanone in the score), two (four)ratchets, played by eight to ten instrumentalists.
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The work has two parts: the Battle (Schlacht) and the Victory Symphony (Sieges Sinfonie). The first part isprogramme music describing two approaching opposing armies and contains extended passages depicting scenes of battle. It uses "Rule Britannia" for the British side and "Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre" ("Marlborough has left for the war", also popularized today as "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow") for the French side.[4] Beethoven may have elected to not use "La Marseillaise" to represent the French forces, asTchaikovsky later did in the1812 Overture, perhaps because playing "La Marseillaise" was considered treasonous in Vienna at the time.
If this first part is pictorial music, the second is far from vulgar and exhibits some typical Beethoven composing techniques. It can be considered as asonata form that, stripped of thedevelopment section, features an extendedcoda. The first theme is afanfare in D major, which switches to the distant key of B-flat major for the second theme.[5] This is "God Save the King", the British national anthem:
However, the finalcadence (bars marked E in the score above) is not played. Instead, motif D is repeated so as to switch back to D major and to the re-exposition of the fanfare theme. This is followed by the re-exposition of "God Save the King", now in the main key (D major) and adopting the pace of a "Tempo di menuetto moderato". Again the final cadence (E) is avoided and replaced by successive repetition of motif D, this time leading to a coda in imitative style. This fugal section ("Allegro") starts as a string octet (later joined by the full orchestra) with the phrase
stemming from phrase A of the "God Save the King" tune. Later a second phrase joins in, still in imitative style,
derived from the anthem's phrase B, thus building up a little double fugue. It all ends with a section based on motif
(which reworks motifs C+D of the original theme) and at last by a final derivative of phrase A:
The first version of "Wellington's Victory" was not written for an orchestra.Mälzel, known today primarily for patenting themetronome, convinced Beethoven to write a short piece commemorating Wellington's victory for his invention, thepanharmonicon. It never caught on as anything more than a curiosity. Nonetheless, Mälzel toured Europe showing off Beethoven's work on the mechanical trumpeter and the enthusiasm for the music convinced Beethoven to turn it into a full-blown "victoryoverture".
The manuscript of the second part of this version was discovered byWilly Hess in a revised copy by the author (Hess 108).
The novelty of the work has waned, and "Wellington's Victory" is not performed often today. Many critics lump it into a category of so-called "battle pieces", along withTchaikovsky's1812 Overture andLiszt'sHunnenschlacht (Battle of the Huns):Charles Rosen wrote that "Beethoven's contribution lacks the serious pretentiousness or the incorporation of ideology ofFelix Mendelssohn'sReformation Symphony, or ofHector Berlioz'sSymphonie funèbre et triomphale, but it is only the less interesting for its modesty."[6]
In their bookMen of Music, Wallace Brockway andHerbert Weinstock termed the piece an "atrocious potboiler".
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