Perhaps the
Marche funèbre was one of the works Beethoven had in mind when he described Cherubini as ‘Europe’s foremost dramatic composer’. It opens with a startling flourish on the tam-tam and timpani. This is clearly no solemn ceremonial, but an anguished, grief-stricken death-march, much closer in style to the music of Berlioz than of Beethoven.
from notes by John Bawden © 1995
