Few Beethoven compositions have enjoyed such universal approval with budding pianists, salon orchestras, and various popular ensembles as the Minuet in G. It is not too far afield to maintain that this is one of the most famous minuets in all musical literature. Beethoven wrote it originally for the piano; it is the second of a set of six minuets, written in 1795, but published as op. 167. It is even more celebrated in its many different transcriptions than it is in the original. The composition is in three-part form. The first and third parts consist of a stately classical melody; midway comes a fast-moving trio of contrasting spirit.
The first movement of the Moonlight Sonata is also often heard in varied transcriptions for salon or “pop” orchestras. The Moonlight Sonata is the popular name of the piano sonata in C-sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2 which Beethoven wrote in 1801 and which he designated as Sonata quasi una fantasia mainly because of the fantasia character of this first movement. The poetic and sensitive mood maintained throughout the first movement—with a romantic melody of ineffable sadness accompanied by slow triplets—is the reason why the critic Rellstab (and not the composer) provided the entire sonata with the name of “Moonlight.” To Rellstab this first movement evoked for him a picture of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland at night time, gently touched by the moonlight. The fact that Beethoven dedicated the sonata to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, with whom he was then in love, leads to a legend that he wrote this music to express frustrated love, but this was not the case. Another myth about this first movement is that Beethoven improvised this music while playing for a blind boy, as moonlight streamed into the window of his room; after he had finished playing he identified himself to the awe-stricken youngster. It was the opinion of the eminent critic, Henry E. Krehbiel, that the sonata was inspired by a poem, Die Beterin by Seume, describing a young girl kneeling at an altar begging for her father’s recovery from a serious illness; angels descend to comfort her and she becomes transfigured by a divine light.
Beethoven wrote two Romances for violin and orchestra: in F major, op. 50 (1802) and G major, op. 40 (1803). Rarely do we encounter in Beethoven’s works such a fresh, spontaneous and entirely unsophisticated outpouring of song—a song that wears its beauty on the surface—as in these two compositions. The two Romances are companion pieces and pursue a similar pattern. Each opens with the solo violin presenting the main melody (in the F major accompanied by the orchestra, in the G major, solo). Each then progresses to a pure outpouring of lyricism followed by virtuoso passages for the solo instrument. In each, violin and orchestra appear to be engaging in a gentle dialogue.
The Turkish March (Marcia alla turca) is one of several numbers (the fourth) comprising the incidental music to a play by Kotzebue, The Ruins of Athens (Die Ruinen von Athen), op. 113 (1811). The production of this play with Beethoven’s music was intended for the opening of a theater in Pesth on February 9, 1812. The Turkish March is in the pseudo-Turkish melodic style popular in Vienna in the early 19th century, and it employs percussion instruments such as the triangle which the Viennese then associated with Turkish music. The march, with its quixotic little melody, begins softly, almost like march music heard from a distance. It grows in sonority until a stirring climax is achieved. Then it dies out gradually and ebbs away in the distance. Leopold Auer made a famous transcription for violin and piano, while Beethoven himself transcribed it for piano, with six variations, op. 76 (1809).
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini was born in Catania, Sicily, on November 3, 1801. Born to a musical family, he received music instruction in childhood, and while still very young started composing. He then attended the San Sebastiano Conservatory in Naples; during his stay there he completed a symphony, two masses, and a cantata among other works. He made his bow as opera composer with Adelson e Salvini, introduced at the Conservatory in 1825. He continued writing operas after that, and having them produced in major Italian opera houses with varying degrees of success. I Capuleti e i Montecchi, given in Venice in 1830, was a triumph. Then came the two operas by which Bellini is today most often represented in the repertory: La Sonnambula and Norma, both produced in 1831. In 1833 he came to Paris where he completed his last opera, I Puritani, given in Paris in 1835. He was at the height of his fame and creative powers when he died in Puteaux, near Paris, on September 23, 1835, at the age of thirty-four, a victim of intestinal fever.
Bellini was the genius of opera song. His fresh, pure lyricism—perfect in design and elegant in style—elevates his greatest operas to a place of significance. His masterwork is Norma, introduced at La Scala in Milan on December 26, 1831, where it was at first a failure. The libretto by Felice Romani was based on a tragedy by L. A. Soumet. In Gaul, during the Roman occupation, in or about 50 B.C., Norma, high priestess of the Druids, violates her vows by secretly marrying the Roman proconsul, Pollione, and bearing him two sons. Pollione then falls in love with Adalgisa, virgin of the Temple of Esus. Unaware that Pollione is married, Adalgisa confides to Norma she is in love with him. With Pollione’s infidelity now apparent, he is brought before Norma for judgment. She offers him the choice of death or the renunciation of Adalgisa. When Pollione accepts death, Norma confesses to her people that, having desecrated her vows, she, too, must die. Moved by this confession, Pollione volunteers to die at her side in the funeral pyre.
The overture is famous. Loud dramatic chords in full orchestra are succeeded by a soft lento passage. A strong melody is then presented by flutes and violins against an incisive rhythm. There follows a graceful, sprightly and strongly accented tune in the strings. Both melodies are then amplified, dramatized, and repeated; particular emphasis is placed on the delicate, accented tune. The overture then proceeds to an energetic conclusion.
One vocal episode from Norma is also extremely popular and is often heard in orchestral transcriptions. It is Norma’s aria, “Casta diva,” surely one of the noblest soprano arias in all Italian operatic literature. It comes in the first act and represents Norma’s prayer for peace, and her grief that the hatred of her people for the Roman invaders must also result in their hatred for her husband, Pollione, the Roman proconsul.