Napoleon, as he rose to power, seemed to many the embodiment of republican principles, the First Consul and creator of a new classical Roman Republic. When he followed the example of Augustus and in 1804 declared himself Emperor, there were those who were disillusioned, among them Beethoven. He had intended his Third Symphony, the Eroica, as a tribute to Napoleon, but changed the dedication, which in any case celebrated in its course the death of a hero. The first movement Allegro con brio remains a monumental achievement.
The bumble-bee that flies to the music of the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov takes to the air in his 1900 opera The Legend of Tsar Saltan, in which the hero changes himself into a bee and takes stinging revenge on his wicked aunts.
Hindu astrology fascinated the English composer Gustav Hoist, popularly known chiefly for his great orchestral and choral work The Planets, first performed in its complete form in London in 1920. Jupiter, described as the Bringer of Jollity, has also acquired patriotic words from another source, suiting the spirit and period of the work.
The 17th century Nuremberg composer Pachelbel has won recent popularity for his Canon, an attractive enough work, in which two forms are combined. A short bass pattern is repeated through a series of 28 variations in which three upper instruments enter one after the other in canonic imitation.
National music in Finland is dominated by the impressive achievement of Jean Sibelius, with his seven great symphonies and series of symphonic poems. Finlandia was written in 1899 to accompany a patriotic pageant staged by the press pensions fund. It came at a time when Finnish feelings were running high against Russian domination.
The famous Emperor Waltz of the younger Johann Strauss enjoys an ambiguous title. Intended originally to celebrate the visit of the Austrian Emperor to his German counterpart in Berlin and the friendship between their two countries, it bore the title Hand in Hand, until the publisher Simrock saw the possibilities of the present title, which could honour either of the Emperors.