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
Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven) at a concert in the Redoutensaal, Vienna, at which the Seventh Symphony (which had been premiered two months earlier) was also played. Beethoven was growing increasingly deaf at the time, but nevertheless led the premiere. Reportedly, "the orchestra largely ignored his ungainly gestures and followed the principal violinist instead." When asked by his pupil Carl Czerny why the Eighth was less popular than the Seventh, Beethoven is said to have replied, "because the Eighth is so much better." A critic wrote that "the applause it received was not accompanied by that enthusiasm which distinguishes a work which gives universal delight;