In the first of two lectures on Beethoven, learn how the composer identified, almost mystically, with the figure of Napoleon. Study the events of the continuing clashes after the French Revolution, and witness the progressive military conflicts between Napoleon and the Austrian Habsburg empire. Grasp the highly personal meanings in Beethoven's Farewell Sonata, which depicts the departure and absence of the composer's aristocratic patron in the face of Napoleon's 1809 march on Vienna.