Letter from Florida: Stéphane Denève conducts Beethoven's Eroica

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 Eroica - New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève  - New World Center (Photo: Alex Markow)

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

In his latest Letter from Florida Robert J Carreras is made thoughtful by a programnme which turned the watchful lens of history on human bondage and oppression with contemporary composer James Lee III alongside Copland and Beethoven

Composers James Lee III, Aaron Copland, and Ludwig van Beethoven – a curious consort at first glance, it is agreed. Let’s look closer with the help of the program curated by New World Symphony (NWS) for this evening. 

Lee’s Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan [inspired by the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman] and Copland’s Lincoln Portrait turn the watchful lens of history 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 Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Stéphane Denève is in an unique position to recount that Beethoven wanted this symphony to be a celebration of Napoleon’s revolutionary and democratic ideals. Why Napoleon was himself a revolutionary, almost jailed at one time for it.

New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève  - outside New World Center (Photo: Alex Markow)

Outside the Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall, to a modest gathering at SoundScape Park and to passersby on South Beach, Denève toured through to the dawn of 19th century France and Germany. Beethoven’s working title for his third symphony, "Bonaparte." 

Rapidly running out of better angels guided by a north star, Napoleon took a different path. You will recall that "boney" went on to pledge an oath to act as Consul for Life. Not much later, he proclaimed himself the first emperor of France, swiping the crown from the Pope at Notre Dame and laying it on his own head. 

There’s a colossal painting depicting this event, two of them to be exact, in France. You can stand in front of it yourself. Just don’t get too close; when it falls, it will flatten you. You’ll never guess who this painting was commissioned and redacted by, dear 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 could, he did – and, as many of his countrymen swore similar oaths as their liege to France, in his successes the same found themselves on both sides of the guillotine. Ludwig van Beethoven would take no part in the masquerades of tyranny, and in this way born is “Eroica.” 

NWS turns towards “Eroica” on the other side of this concert. For now, an unscheduled turn of events – Denève leads a modest assortment of brass and percussion in a ceremonial rendition of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. They were on a propped-up stage there, al fresco, over the lawn before this livestreamed and WALLCAST® evening turned back inside the hall.

From the outset, NWS were on their front feet for James Lee III and conductor Ziwei Ma. Spirited and fierce, these players and Ma minced few musical notes or feelings: this was going to be a night to remember. Ma’s technique is classic, her movements modest, graceful and attuned. 

Through Lee’s music, we are to feel a slave oppressed; we are to feel fleeing across state lines – swamplands, wildlife, heat and humidity, bitter cold and frost– hundreds of miles, weeks and weeks, as masters and servants give chase; we are to feel the tense tug-of-war between the possibility of recapture and the possibility of safe passage at the north star. We are to feel freedom – “chuphshah” in Hebrew – through Lee’s Harriet’s Drive to Canaan. 

Inside their means, this orchestra played to these themes, integral parts of Lee’s cri de coeur to the enslaved. As a group, outside of their means is the practiced and sustained volume and technical skills that come with up-close listening to and playing with career, crack players. Given that, the spirituals embedded by Lee come off the page, up and through the sound-waves and heart-waves. Given that, the sampling of I wish I was in Dixieland peacefully transfers its power to the sampling of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

"You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it” – words probably spat out by Abraham Lincoln in a presidential debate to explain the point of tyranny. Words spoken by actor Joshua Malina, the narrator for Copland’s Lincoln Portrait here – both his tenor and NWS meaning to keep the fire lit by human beings like Harriet Tubman, putting it under these seats and raising the roof. Look up (Chuphshah!) for what we are to feel in Lincoln Portrait. 

We recognize and feel Abe Lincoln through his written and spoken words; yep, that’s him alright. We know he felt the enslaved, a union consecrated in the promised land. And through their playing, we know NWS has it in them – the signal Napoleon lost touch with. NWS transferred the dynamic variations in Copland’s Lincoln Portrait right on through to Beethoven.

The stage-filling instrumentation of the 20th century cleared for the historically-informed orchestra of Beethoven. Then, the hammer strokes signalled the start of Beethoven’s Third Symphony. Denève surprised, with nary a pause between chords, the second virtually tied to the succeeding cellos. A “Big Bang” worthy of memory. Using modern parlance, this bop needs to turn on a dime often; the transition between the first movement and the Marcia Funebre provides a pointed example of where these young players are headed. 

Beethoven revolutionized the practice of long movements, each with extended codas. The first movement of Eroica ends with a buildup – every orchestral fire burning – balmy, toasty, steaming, then burning again. NWS players should have expended their resources, and they did. Denève took a notably long pause, a cool down, so that his players could regroup and reposition for the solemnity of the second movement.  Denève helped turn the flames down low by actively quieting them. 

Making great fun out of timing expectations, it appears Denève attempts to disguise and surprise entrances in the Scherzo now, and to a lesser extent in the Allegro molto after. Beethoven might have expressed modest parental admiration. In Beethoven’s final nod to the hero becoming “Eroica,” NWS and Denève  took to the modest musical breakdowns with care for the lines and rhythmic patterns, cruising up the sear into the fervent finale. 

Turning back a page on Beethoven’s Third Symphony, and looking closer still, maybe you’re prompted to ask, "What did Beethoven feel...about Napoleon?" Well, Beethoven was neither a warlock, nor a wizard, nor a psychic or conjurer, and he didn’t wait to find out. 

Virtue has a way of seeing in the dark; and darkness does not "like virtue very much either. Napoleon made it crystal clear. Beethoven probably feared running out of better angels that might help him feel better, like Napoleon did. It seems clear Beethoven didn’t ever want to feel like Napoleon did. Would you?

Copland: Lincoln Portrait - Joshua Malina, New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève  - New World Center (Photo: Alex Markow)

James Lee III was born in St. Joseph, Michigan and raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Lee began his musical studies as a piano student. After earning a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from the University of Michigan, he was advised by a friend – composer Gabriela Lena Frank – to enter the university’s Master of Music program in composition, where he earned both master’s and doctoral degrees in composition. His career began in earnest when his dissertation work Beyond Rivers of Vision (2005) was premiered by Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in October 2006. A second early work, A Different Soldier's Tale, was premiered by Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in December 2008. Lee currently lives in Maryland, where he is a professor of theory and composition at Morgan State University.

His composition teachers included Michael Daugherty, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Betsy Jolas, Susan Botti, Erik Santos and James Aikman. Lee also served as a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the summer of 2002, studying with Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gandolfi, Steven Mackey, Kaija Saariaho, and Stefan Asbury.

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