The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

We come to a consideration of the facts touching the compositions of the years 1796 and 1797.

The Composition of “Adelaide”

Among the most widely known of these is “Adelaide.” The composition of this song must have been begun in the first half of 1795, if not earlier, for sketches of it are found among the exercises in double counterpoint written for Albrechtsberger. Other sheets containing sketches for “Adelaide” and the setting of Bürger’s “Seufzer eines Ungeliebten” are preserved in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and the British Museum in London. The song was published by Artaria in 1797, under the title “Adelaide von Matthisson. Eine Kantate für eine Singstimme mit Begleitung des Klaviers. In Musik gesetzt und dem Verfasser gewidmet von Ludwig van Beethoven.” The opus number 46 was given to it later. In 1800 Beethoven sent a copy of the song to the poet and accompanied it with the following letter:

Most honored Sir!

You are herewith receiving from me a composition which has been in print for several years, but concerning which you probably, to my shame, know nothing. Perhaps I can excuse myself and explain how it came about that I dedicated something to you which came so warmly from my heart yet did not inform you of the fact, by saying that at first I was unaware of your place of residence, and partly also I was diffident, not knowing but that I had been over-hasty in dedicating a work to you without knowing whether or not it met with your approval.

Even now I send you “Adelaide” with some timidity. You know what changes are wrought by a few years in an artist who is continually going forward; the greater the progress one makes in art the less one is satisfied with one’s older works. My most ardent wish will be fulfilled if my musical setting of your heavenly “Adelaide” does not wholly displease you, and if it should move you soon to write another poem of its kind, and you, not finding my request too immodest, should send it to me at once, I will put forth all my powers to do your beautiful poetry justice. Look upon the dedication as partly a token of the delight which the composition of your A. gave me, partly as an evidence of my gratitude and respect for the blessed pleasure which your poetry has always given, and always will give me.

When playing “Adelaide” sometimes recall
your sincere admirer
Beethoven.

Vienna, August 4th, 1800.

Whether or not Matthisson answered this letter is not known; but when he republished “Adelaide” in the first volume of his collected poems in 1815, he appended to it a note to this effect: “Several composers have vitalized this little lyric fantasy with music; but according to my strong conviction none of them so threw the text into the shade with his melody as the highly gifted Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna.” The “Opferlied,” the words of which were also written by Matthisson, is one of the poems to which Beethoven repeatedly recurred. “It seems always to have presented itself to him as a prayer,” says Nottebohm. Its last words, “The beautiful to the good,” were written in autograph albums even in his later years. The origin of the composition is to be ascribed to 1795, as Nottebohm enters it in his catalogue. It was thus possible for Wegeler to know it in 1797, when he put a Masonic text under the music. It had not yet been published at that time, however, which fact accounts for the discovery of sketches for it in a sketchbook of 1798-1799 described by Nottebohm.

It was not published until later, probably in 1808, when it came with two other songs from the press of Simrock. Beethoven composed the poem a second time, utilizing the beginning of his first melody, for solo, chorus and orchestra (Op. 121b). To this setting we shall recur hereafter. There is still another song which must be brought into the story of this period. It is the “Seufzer eines Ungeliebten,” with its two parts based on two independent but related poems by Bürger. Particular interest attaches to the second part, “Gegenliebe,” from the fact that its melody was used afterward by Beethoven for the variations in the “Choral Fantasia,” Op. 80. Sketches for this melody are found associated with sketches for “Adelaide” on a sheet in the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Nottebohm fixes the year of the song’s origin as 1795. It was first published as late as 1837 by Diabelli along with the song, “Turteltaube, du klagest,” which was composed much later. The Italian song, “O care selve, o cara felice libertà” (from Metastasio’s “Olimpiade”), entered under number 1264 in Thayer’s “Chronologisches Verzeichniss,” appears as a chorus for three voices at the end of the Albrechtsberger exercises, and hence may be placed in the year 1795, as is done by Nottebohm, who adds that it originated simultaneously with the setting of “Wer ist ein freier Mann?” Here mention must also be made of two arias which Beethoven wrote for introduction in Umlauf’s comic opera “Die schöne Schusterin.” These songs were assigned to the Bonn period in the first edition of this biography because the opera was performed in Bonn in the years 1789 and 1790. The two songs composed by Beethoven are an arietta, or rather strophic song, “O welch’ ein Leben,” for tenor, and an aria, “Soll ein Schuh nicht drücken?” for soprano. The words of the latter are in the original libretto. The words of the tenor song, though not part of the original text, were obviously written for the opera. The melody was afterward used by Beethoven as a setting for Goethe’s “Mailied,” published in 1805, as Op. 52. Both songs, as written for the opera, were published for the first time in the Complete Edition of Beethoven’s works from the copies preserved in the Berlin Library.