Ludwig van Beethoven Napoleon's imperial ambitions became clear, Beethoven took hold of the title page of his Third Symphony and scratched the name Bonaparte out so violently that he made a hole in the paper. He later changed the work's title to "Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uom" ("Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man"), and he rededicated it to his patron, Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz, at whose palace it was first performed. The fourth movement of his Ninth Symphony features an elaborate choral setting of Schiller's Ode "An die Freude" ("Ode to Joy"), an
Stephen I of Hungary 1989. A popular hymn, still sung in the churches, was first recorded in the late . It hails King St. Stephen as "radiant star of Hungarians". Ludwig van Beethoven composed his "King Stephen Overture" for the inauguration of the Hungarian theatre in Pest in 1812. According to musician James M. Keller, "[t]he descending unisons that open the "King Stephen Overture" would seem to prefigure the opening of the "Ninth Symphony" [a]nd then a later theme, introduced by flutes and clarinets, seems almost to be a of the famous "Ode 'To Joy"' melody of the Ninth Symphony's finale". Hungarian composer Ferenc