{"id":5673,"date":"2019-12-23T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T07:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=5673"},"modified":"2019-12-11T10:43:04","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T09:43:04","slug":"christmas-with-beethoven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2019\/12\/23\/christmas-with-beethoven\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas with Beethoven"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In keeping with our Beethoven blog to mark the composer\u2019s 250th anniversary, this year’s Christmas post will also revolve around Beethoven, although, alas, he composed very little church music and did not \u2013 like Bach \u2013 leave us a wonderful Christmas oratorio.<\/p>\n

From today’s point of view, however, there is a work by Beethoven that is associated with Christmas, even if that was not the composer’s intention. At the end of the 18th century when variations on themes from operas and oratorios became very popular, Beethoven joined in with his \u201c12 Variations on a Theme from Handel’s Oratorio \u2018Judas Maccabaeus\u2019 in G major WoO 45\u201d for cello and piano. Not much is known about the work\u2019s genesis, but it was first published in 1797 by Artaria in Vienna. The theme of the variations pertains to the chorus \u201cSee the conqu’ring hero comes\u201d, which Handel composed in 1747 for the 3rd act of his \u201cJoshua\u201d oratorio and also introduced a few years later to \u201cJudas Maccabaeus\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Friedrich Heinrich Ranke (1798\u20131876)<\/p><\/div>\n

Nowadays, this theme is known mainly in Germany as an Advent lied \u201cTochter Zion, freue dich [Daughter of Zion, rejoice]\u201d. The song originated in Erlangen in the 1820s, hence long after Beethoven composed his variations on its tune. The Evangelical theologian Friedrich Heinrich Ranke underlaid Handel’s choral movement with a new text, making changes to the music in a few measures at the same time. \u201cSee the conqu\u2019ring hero comes\u201d is, furthermore, in G major, while Ranke transposed \u201cTochter Zion\u201d to E flat major.<\/p>\n

Ranke’s text is based on the book of Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9: \u201cRejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.\u201d [King James Version]. The song was published in 1826 in the collection \u201cChristliche, liebliche Lieder [Lovely Christian Songs]\u201d under the heading \u201cAm Palmsontage [On Palm Sunday]\u201d. It is not known how an Easter piece became an integral part of the Christmas season. Thomas Mann’s 1901 novel \u201cBuddenbrooks\u201d does, however, already mention the song within a Christmas context.<\/p>\n

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Handel\u2019s melody was not performed everywhere as transformed into a song for the Advent season. In England, it is part of Henry Wood’s \u201cFantasia on British Sea Songs\u201d and is played almost every year at the \u201cLast Night of the Proms\u201d. In Norway, the Netherlands and in English-speaking countries, the song remained associated with Easter as in, respectively, \u201cDeg v’re \u00e9re\u201d or \u201cU zij de Glorie\u201d or \u201cThine is\/be the glory, risen, conqu’ring Son\u201d.<\/p>\n

Although Beethoven did not view his 12 variations as being within a Christmas context, the melody is now firmly linked to Christmas, at least in some regions. So, put yourself musically in the mood with Handel<\/a>, Beethoven<\/a> and Tochter Zion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, 2020!<\/p>\n

Your Henle blog authors,<\/p>\n

Norbert Gertsch
\nPeter Jost
\nNorbert\u00a0 M\u00fclleman
\nAnnette Oppermann
\nDominik\u00a0 Rahmer
\nWolf-Dieter Seiffert<\/p>\n

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In keeping with our Beethoven blog to mark the composer\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}