Ludwig van Beethoven
German, 1770–1827
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (“Eroica”), Op. 55 (1803–04)
II. Marcia funebre: Adagio assai
Recommended recording: Les Siècles, conducted by François-Xavier Roth (Harmonia Mundi, 2021)
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Jacques-Louis David
French, 1748–1825
The Death of Marat (1793)
Oil on canvas
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
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Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
David’s The Death of Marat was painted at the height of the French Revolution and serves as both political propaganda and a portrait of martyrdom. It commemorates the radical journalist and Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793), who was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer, during the Reign of Terror.
The painting depicts Marat moments after his assassination, slumped in the medicinal bath where he worked to relieve a chronic skin condition, still clutching the letter Corday used to gain entry. Framed by the discarded knife and his quill, Marat is presented as both a victim of political murder and as a revolutionary writer, while the letter itself exposes the assassin’s ruse and underscores Marat’s identity as a devoted servant of the people.
Stylistically, David employs a stark Neoclassical language—severe simplicity, a restrained palette, and a dramatically pared-down setting. By isolating Marat’s body against a dark background, David heightens the figure’s sculptural presence, recalling Baroque chiaroscuro (Caravaggio in particular) through the lens of Neoclassical restraint. This focus directs the viewer toward moral gravity rather than sensational violence, allowing the illuminated corpse to read like a monument or tomb effigy.
At the same time, the painting invokes Christian pietà imagery to cast Marat as a secular saint of the Revolution. Marat’s serene, faintly beatific expression suppresses the agony of murder and instead presents emotional calm, echoing Christ-like or saintly death imagery. The softened mouth transforms Marat from political radical into moral martyr: he died peacefully for the cause, his sacrifice purged of rage or fear.
David’s painting, though a static image, has a ceremonial, almost processional quality, much like the second movement (Marcia funebre, “Funeral March”) of Beethoven’s Third Symphony (Eroica). Composed in the political aftermath of the French Revolution, the Eroica was originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, but Beethoven withdrew the dedication when Napoleon crowned himself emperor. This recast the symphony as a more universal meditation on heroism.
Like The Death of Marat, the second movement of the Eroica transforms death into public ritual through a kind of severe, pared-down formal language that amplifies grief. The music’s stark C-minor tonality, solemn pacing, and dramatic dynamic contrasts create a public ritual of grief that can be heard as mourning both fallen revolutionary heroes and the death of Enlightenment ideals.
Formally, the funeral march expands ternary form to remarkable scale and emotional range, contrasting austere lament with moments of transcendent consolation. The opening theme in the strings (0:00–0:30 in the recording by Les Siècles) establishes a somber, march-like tread. This is followed by a central C-major episode (4:12) that provides a moment of consolation before the return of the tragic opening theme (6:17).
What follows (6:54) is an expansive fugal section, with voices entering one by one in imitative counterpoint. The dramatic intensity of the fugue becomes increasingly strident before reaching an emotionally unhinged climax (8:17–8:32).
Toward the end of the movement (13:38), the main theme returns, only to dissolve into isolated fragments and silences: the march cannot sustain itself, and the music embodies the very act of dying it mourns.
The Eroica fundamentally expanded what a symphony could be in terms of emotional scope and structural complexity. While David’s The Death of Marat exemplified Neoclassical ideals—formal clarity, moral virtue, and rationality—Beethoven transformed the classical symphony into a vehicle for philosophical, political, and existential struggle, inaugurating the heroic ethos and expressive landscape of Romanticism.
© 2026 Troy Etter