![TitlePageOfOriginalEditionOfAdelaide](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/TitlePageOfOriginalEditionOfAdelaide.PNG)
''Adelaide'',
Op. 46, () is a song for solo voice and piano composed in about 1795 by
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
. The text is a poem in German by
Friedrich von Matthisson
Friedrich von Matthisson (23 January 1761 – 12 March 1831) was a German poet, an early member of the German Romantic movement. His best known poem is probably ''Adelaide'', which was set to music by Beethoven.
Biography
He was born at Hohendod ...
(1761–1831).
Composition and publication
During the period he created ''Adelaide'', Beethoven was in his mid twenties; he had come to Vienna in 1792 to pursue a career and was in the early stages of making a name for himself as pianist and composer. He had only recently completed his studies with
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...
. A. Peter Brown suggests that in writing ''Adelaide'', Beethoven was strongly influenced by Haydn's song ''O Tuneful Voice'' (
Hob. XXVIa:42, c. 1795), written by the elder composer shortly before. Like "Adelaide", "O Tuneful Voice" sets a love poem, is in moderate tempo with a steady triplet accompaniment, and wanders from key to key in its middle section.
In composing ''Adelaide'' Beethoven made many sketches.
[Cooper (2008, 64)] Barry Cooper assigns the work of composition to "an unusually long time during 1794, 1795, and perhaps 1796."
The song was published by
Artaria Artaria & Co. () was one of the most important music publishing firms of the late 18th and 19th century. Founded in the 18th century in Vienna, the company is associated with many leading names of the classical era.
History
Artaria & Co. was foun ...
in Vienna; the first edition bears no date, but an advertisement for it appeared 8 February 1797 in the ''
Wiener Zeitung
''Wiener Zeitung'' is an Austrian newspaper. It is one of the oldest, still published newspapers in the world. It is the official publication used by the Government of the Republic of Austria for legally-required announcements, such as company r ...
''.
[Krehbiel (1902:iii)]
Beethoven dedicated the work to Matthisson. The German-language title page may be translated:
:ADELAIDE by MATTHISSON. A
cantata
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.
The meaning of ...
for voice with keyboard accompaniment. Set to music, and dedicated to the author, by LUDVIG van BEETHOVEN. Artaria and Co., Vienna.
Text
The text of ''Adelaide'' is an early Romantic poem that expresses an outpouring of yearning for an idealized and apparently unattainable woman.
Your friend wanders alone in the garden of spring,
Gently bathed in lovely magical light,
Which shimmers through the swaying branches of flowers:
Adelaide!
In the reflection of the river, in the snows of the Alps,
In the golden clouds of sinking day,
In the fields of stars thy face beams forth,
Adelaide!
Evening breezes whisper through the tender leaves
The silver bells at Maytime rustle in the grass,
Waves roar and nightingales sing,
Adelaide!
Some day, o miracle! a flower will blossom,
Upon my grave from the ashes of my heart;
And clearly on every violet petal will shine:
Adelaide!
For his poem Matthisson chose an unusual
meter
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...
, with the pattern ''
trochee
In English poetic metre and modern linguistics, a trochee () is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. But in Latin and Ancient Greek poetic metre, a trochee is a heavy syllable followed by a light one (al ...
'', ''
dactyl
Dactyl may refer to:
* Dactyl (mythology), a legendary being
* Dactyl (poetry), a metrical unit of verse
* Dactyl Foundation, an arts organization
* Finger, a part of the hand
* Dactylus, part of a decapod crustacean
* "-dactyl", a suffix used ...
'', ''trochee'', ''trochee'', ''trochee''. This is a German adaptation of a meter used in ancient Greek and Latin, the Phaelacian
hendecasyllable
In poetry, a hendecasyllable (sometimes hendecasyllabic) is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical (Ancient Greek and Latin) poetry, and ...
.
The poem clearly struck a chord with Beethoven, whose personal life often centered on his yearnings for idealized and unattainable women. The letter of thanks that Beethoven later wrote to Matthisson testifies to his emotional engagement with the poem:
Music
![Beethoven Riedel 1801](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Beethoven_Riedel_1801.jpg)
''Adelaide'' is in the key of
B-flat major
B-flat major is a major scale based on B, with pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Its key signature has two flats. Its relative minor is G minor and its parallel minor is B-flat minor.
The B-flat major scale is:
:
Many transposing instr ...
; the
vocal range
Vocal range is the range of pitches that a human voice can phonate. A common application is within the context of singing, where it is used as a defining characteristic for classifying singing voices into voice types. It is also a topic of stud ...
is appropriate for a
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...
or
soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
voice (it is also performed in
transposed
In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal;
that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations).
The tr ...
versions by other voices). A performance lasts about six minutes. The song is
through-composed
In music theory of musical form, through-composed music is a continuous, non- sectional, and non- repetitive piece of music. The term is typically used to describe songs, but can also apply to instrumental music.
While most musical forms such as t ...
, meaning that every stanza is set to different music.
Beethoven treated the text in two parts. The first, covering the first three stanzas, is set
larghetto
In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...
and marked ''dolce''. There is a triplet accompaniment in the piano, with many modulations through the flat keys, creating a dreamy atmosphere. As Cooper remarks, "the lover sees his beloved wherever he wanders, and the music correspondingly wanders through a great range of keys and rhythms."
The second part of Beethoven's song sets the extravagant death fantasy of the final stanza, in which flowers sprout from the poet's grave to express his undying love. Strikingly, Beethoven sets this stanza in tones not of despair but of ecstasy; the tempo marking is ''allegro molto''. In an essay on this song, Carla Ramsey offers an almost lurid account of the final section:
"A culmination of the yearnings expressed in the earlier part of the song, the ''Allegro molto'' might be viewed as a kind of triumphal march in which the young lover exults in a death and a transfiguration whereby he is symbolically united with his beloved... The march crescendos and culminates on F above middle C with an impassioned outcry of the beloved's name. The final eleven measures, marked '' calando'', musically portray an almost post-coital relaxation of the exhausted lover into his lover's arms with a dying, prayer-like exhalation: "Adelaide."
Of the music of the final section, Kinderman remarks, "Most striking of all is the musical intensification of the last stanza in the ''Allegro molto''. In the piano, he compresses the melodic outline from the beginning of the song, with its upbeat from F leading to repeated Ds and then the dominant seventh supporting E♭. The "compression" pointed out by Kinderman is illustrated in the following figure and sound files.
Reception
Beethoven was quite late in presenting Matthisson with a copy of his song, fearing the poet would not like it (see letter above). In fact, Matthisson appreciated the song greatly; he later wrote (in an 1825 introduction to an edition of his collected poems):
Several composers have animated this little lyrical fantasy through music; I am firmly convinced however that none of them so threw the text into the shade with their melody as did the genius Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna.
Of Beethoven's songs (a minor genre for this composer), ''Adelaide'' is one of the most popular, and it is included in most recorded anthologies.
The work was especially popular in Beethoven's day, and went through many editions. Various composers, including
Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg (8 January 1812 – 27 April 1871) was an Austrian composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.
Family
He was born in Pâquis near Geneva on 8 January 1812. According to his own account, h ...
and
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
(who wrote three versions,
S.466) prepared arrangements of the song for solo piano. Later in the nineteenth century, the critic
Eduard Hanslick
Eduard Hanslick (11 September 18256 August 1904) was an Austrian music critic, aesthetician and historian. Among the leading critics of his time, he was the chief music critic of the ''Neue Freie Presse'' from 1864 until the end of his life. H ...
called ''Adelaide'' "the only song by Beethoven the loss of which would leave a gap in the emotional life of our nation." The song is less well-known today; the ''
New Grove
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theor ...
'' calls it "once-popular".
Criticism
Charles Rosen
Charles Welles Rosen (May 5, 1927December 9, 2012) was an American pianist and writer on music. He is remembered for his career as a concert pianist, for his recordings, and for his many writings, notable among them the book ''The Classical Sty ...
used the song to exemplify his claim that, somewhat paradoxically, Beethoven actually drew closer to the compositional practice of his predecessors
Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...
and
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
as his career evolved:
With age, Beethoven drew closer to the forms and proportions of Haydn and Mozart. In his youthful works, the imitation of his two great precursors is largely exterior: in technique and even in spirit, he is at the beginning of his career often closer to Hummel, Weber, and to the later works of Clementi Clementi may refer to:
People
* Aldo Clementi (1925–2011), Italian composer
* Cecil Clementi (1875–1947), British colonial administrator and Governor of Hong Kong
* Cecilia Clementi, Italian-American scientist
* David Clementi (born 1949), B ...
than to Haydn and Mozart ... The equilibrium between harmonic and thematic development so characteristic of Haydn and Mozart is often lost in early Beethoven, where thematic contrast and transformation seem to outweigh all other interests. Beethoven, indeed, started as a true member of his generation, writing now in a proto- Romantic style and now in a late and somewhat attenuated version of the classical style
Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the works of the Roman architect V ...
, with an insistence on the kind of broad, square melodic structure that was to find its true justification later in the Romantic period of the 1830s. The early song ''Adelaide'' is as much Italian Romantic opera as anything else: its long, winding melody, symmetrical and passionate, its colorful modulations and aggressively simple accompaniment could come easily from an early work of Bellini.[Rosen (1971/1997:380)]
Notes
References
*''
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...
'', on-line edition, article "Ludwig van Beethoven"
*Brown, A. Peter (2002) Notes on Joseph Haydn's lieder and canzonettas. In Darwin Floyd Scott, eds., ''For the Love of Music:
Festschrift
In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
in Honor of Theodore Front on His 90th Birthday''. Theodore Front Music.
*Cooper, Barry (2008) ''Beethoven''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Kinderman, William (2009) ''Beethoven''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Krehbiel, H. E. (1902) Historical and critical notes. Introductory material to ''Ludwig van Beethoven: Six Songs''. New York: G. Schirmer.
*
*Rosen, Charles (1970/2001) ''The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven''. New York: Norton.
External links
*
Sheet music for "Adelaide"*
{{Authority control
1790s songs
Compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven
Lieder