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Programme notes beethoven and bonaparte element of contrast to what has gone before. The recapitulation opens with a passage in which the second horn, anticipating the return to the home key, plays the common chord of E-flat under the harmony of the dominant seventh. At the time of the Symphony's first performance this passage was seen as highly unorthodox and aroused much comment An extensive coda of 120 bars, in scale matching the development section, brings the movement to an end. The second movement, the famous ’Funeral March', has been the subject of several interpretations. According to Schindler, Beethoven, on hearing of Napoleon's death, commented that he had composed his funeral march seventeen years earlier. Marked Adagio, the movement is in the form of a long song, the main theme of which is divided in to three parts, A-B-A, with the third section repeating and developing the first. A second theme in the major key, which has been variously interpreted as representing serenity and an after-life, and played by the oboe, alternates with the first theme. The last appearance of the principal theme is veiled and disrupted by syncopations in a way that recalls the ending of the Overture to Coriolan, but in an even more sombre mood. The third movement, the Symphony's scherzo, is marked Allegro vivace, and is an enlarged replica of the old Minuet form, with a trio and repeats. The main theme is given out by the oboe over a muttered and staccato string accompaniment, played pianissimo. The trio is entrusted to the horns, whose theme has a pronounced 'open-air' character. The finale, Allegro molto, consisted of free variations on a theme previously employed by Beethoven in the incidental music to The Creatures of Prometheus. Op. 43, and prior to that in the ’Fifteen Variations in E-flat', Op. 35 for solo piano. This initial theme is enriched by a melody superimposed upon it from the third Variation, and played by the oboe. This secondary theme gives rise to a series of twelve variations. The climax is the penultimate andante Variation, richly harmonised and of great power. The final Variation, marked Presto, provides a peroration to the work of a brilliance entirely in keeping with the Symphony's title 'Heroic'. David Patmore