{"id":5940,"date":"2020-07-13T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T06:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=5940"},"modified":"2020-07-13T07:33:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T05:33:56","slug":"more-than-ode-to-joy-the-whole-range-of-beethovens-vocal-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2020\/07\/13\/more-than-ode-to-joy-the-whole-range-of-beethovens-vocal-work\/","title":{"rendered":"More than \u201cOde to Joy\u201d \u2013 the whole range of Beethoven\u2019s vocal work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Although the melody of the 9th<\/sup> Symphony\u2019s choral movement, \u201cFreude sch\u00f6ner G\u00f6tterfunken\u201d (Joy, beautiful spark of the gods), is most likely one of Beethoven\u2019s best known tunes, it is the composer\u2019s instrumental work that is primarily linked today to his popularity and musico-historical significance: The 32 piano sonatas as the \u201cNew Testament of piano music\u201d, the 9 symphonies as the milestone in symphonic music, the string quartets as the epitome of Goethe\u2019s idea of conversation amongst \u201cfour reasonable people\u201d. \u00a0So far, so good, but as vocal music editor at Henle publishers, I naturally look at the matter somewhat differently \u2013 and with this post I\u2019m inviting you to a little stroll through the whole range of Beethoven vocal works that we have ready for you here at Henle.<\/p>\n

Quantitatively, Beethoven\u2019s output for the human voice is already immense, as I came to realise in detail several years ago whilst editing the new Beethoven Works\u2019 Catalogue<\/a>: Vocal works constitute just under a fifth of the opp. 1\u2013138 listed there in the first volume. But would you have thought that in the second volume reserved for works without opus number, the so-called \u201cWoOs\u201d 87\u2013205 and 220\u2013228 would still come to well over a hundred music settings, from arias, choral works, folk-song arrangements and lieder with piano accompaniment to canons and musical jokes?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Incipit WoO 227 \u201cEsel aller Esel\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Indeed, with the more than 70 canons and jokes one can hardly speak of a classic \u201cwork\u201d in the emphatic sense, especially when these come to settings (surprisingly numerous!) of the first name \u201cTobias\u201d adorning the letters Beethoven wrote his publisher Tobias Haslinger. Also certainly not part of musical world literature is the canon \u201cEsel aller Esel\u201d (Jackass of all Jackasses) WoO 227 underlaid with donkey sounds\u2026. Though amongst these occasional compositions there are also charming musical miniatures such as the six-part canon on Goethe\u2019s words \u201cEdel sei der Mensch, hilfreich und gut\u201d WoO 185 or the practically philosophical \u201cWir irren allesamt, nur jeder irret anderst\u201d WoO 198, originating in Beethoven\u2019s last year of life and representing to a certain extent with its four measures, his final \u201ccompleted composition\u201d. The often encoded canons gave Beethoven\u2019s contemporaries and today\u2019s editors stuff to ponder, as discovering where and in which register the next voice should enter is often not at all trivial. In this respect, we can be particularly excited about the Beethoven Gesamtausgabe <\/em>(Complete Edition) volume underway that is to be devoted to these works. (By the way, you can already conveniently listen to these rarely performed pieces in the Beethoven-Haus<\/em> digital archives<\/a> \u2013 go ahead and check it out now!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Likewise included within limits amongst the \u201cvocal work\u201d is Beethoven\u2019s contribution to George Thomson\u2019s encyclopedic enterprise, to publish Scottish, Irish and Welsh folk songs in arrangements by contemporary composers such as Beethoven, Haydn, Weber or Hummel. Here, the composer was given song melodies by Thomson and was supposed to compose \u201conly\u201d an accompanying movement for piano trio, for which, that is to say, the principal made clear whether here he wanted to have a prelude or an interlude, and sometimes requested revisions if the piano piece appeared to be technically too demanding or inappropriate for the \u201cartless melody\u201d. The fact that despite such restrictions Beethoven created more than 160 such arrangements between 1810 and 1820, a majority of which has since appeared in the Beethoven Gesamtausgabe<\/em><\/a> can hardly be explained by the rather modest remuneration. \u00a0In truth, a certain ambition must here perhaps have captivated the creator of great chamber music. For in his accompaniment Beethoven always establishes new and surprising references to the given melodies, ranging from jolly round dances to melancholy airs, which make these pieces \u2013 alas, little known today \u2013 a feast for singers and the best musical entertainment for listeners.<\/p>\n

Whilst the folk-song arrangements are still awaiting recognition by today\u2019s audience, Beethoven lieder with piano accompaniment have, of course, long since achieved acclaim. The wonderful cycle \u00a0\u201cAn die ferne Geliebte\u201d<\/a> op. 98 surely marks a climax here, and the famous \u201cFlohlied\u201d (Flea Song) from Goethe\u2019s Faust<\/em> is probably one of the most comical \u2013 not least because Beethoven marks fingering (the slurred demisemiquavers always played by the thumb) even to set crushing the annoying fleas to music.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Excerpt from \u201cFrom Goethe’s Faust\u201d op. 75,3 in the Urtext edition Goethe-Songs<\/em> HN 1017<\/p><\/div>\n

But other lieder are also worth closer consideration: a few years ago, we put together with the Beethoven-lied specialist Helga L\u00fchning a volume of Beethoven\u2019s Goethe settings<\/a>, located in which is not only Kl\u00e4rchen\u2019s touching \u201cFreudvoll und leidvoll\u201d from Egmont<\/em>, but also the expressive Mignon from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre<\/em>. Besides the famous \u201cKennst du das Land?\u201d, opening Beethoven\u2019s 1810 Sechs Ges\u00e4nge<\/em> op. 75, there is also the little sister work \u201cSehnsucht\u201d WoO 134, in which Beethoven set the poem \u201cNur wer die Sehnsucht kennt\u201d to music \u2013 four times, in fact! For when he was commissioned in 1808 to compose a Goethe poem for the literary journal Prometheus<\/em>, he did indeed have ideas enough, but evidently no time to work them out into a completely successful lied. So, he sent his autograph with several versions to the no-doubt somewhat baffled journal editors, noting at the outset: \u201cNb: I did not have enough time to produce something good, therefore several attempts.\u201d Only the first of the four versions appeared in the journal in 1808, but two years later all four were to be published in a separate edition, thus granting contemporaries a very interesting insight into the master\u2019s musical imagination.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

1st page of the first edition, in: Prometheus<\/em> (1808), no. 3<\/p><\/div>\n

A further insight into Beethoven\u2019s workshop is provided by another collection of soprano arias plus a duet and a trio<\/a> in the Henle catalogue, specially assembled for practical use. It includes in addition to the famous \u201cAh! perfido\u201d op. 65, also such largely unknowns as the scene and aria \u201cNo, non turbati\u201d WoO 92a on a text by Pietro Metastasio, coming from Beethoven\u2019s lessons with Antonio Salieri in the winter of 1801\/02. The autograph manuscripts identify three progressive stages: Beethoven\u2019s first inscription of the full score, then Salieri\u2019s correction entries, and finally a re-inscription of the vocal part in which Beethoven sometimes takes Salieri\u2019s corrections (especially of the diction) into account but also makes other changes. The synoptic representation of the three stages that editor Ernst Herttrich chose for the Beethoven Gesamtausgabe<\/em><\/a> was, of course, not an option for a practical performing edition \u2013 but we were able to incorporate the two versions, before and after Salieri\u2019s intervention, into our edition, making both usable in practice for the first time through the piano reduction by Joseph Kanz.<\/p>\n

Does this whet your appetite? Then, have fun leafing through the Beethoven vocal section in the Henle catalogue!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although the melody of the 9th Symphony\u2019s choral movement, \u201cFreude … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[276,3],"tags":[7,742],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5940"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5953,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940\/revisions\/5953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}