This short piece for orchestra serves as a musical ’’epigraph’’ to the Eroica Symphony. It is based on the idea of hero and antihero, given the history of Eroica’s dedication to Napoleon and Beethoven’s use of the theme from his ’’Creatures of Prometheus’’ in the Symphony. Ash is something left after fire, which is a symbol of both life and destruction. Ash is left after ’’Prometheus’’ turns ugly and becomes ’’nothing more than an ordinary mortal’’ as, according to the legend, Beethoven stated when removing the dedication. The piece is built on static vertical structures that slowly grow and pulsate between chromatic clusters and more consonant triads. The growth breaks out into fanfare-like major chords which quickly distort into equally loud clusters. The grotesque fanfares, in a way, ’’mock’’ the opening chords of Eroica. After the last cluster chord there is a quiet echo of noise which eventually fades into silence. The Symphony starts attaca.