Can anything about Beethoven truly be described as incidental?
Beethoven’s music for the stage is one of the more neglected aspects of his output. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll set aside the symphonies and concertos, for the time being, for a revelatory evening at the theater with the Master from Bonn.
In 1807, Beethoven composed a curtain-raiser for the play “Coriolan,” by Heinrich Joseph Collin. Two years later came a commission from the Vienna Court Theatre for music for a new production of Goethe’s “Egmont.” The commission resulted in an overture and six separate numbers, altogether a fairly substantial work.
Then in 1811, Beethoven was approached to write music for two plays by August von Kotzebue, “The Ruins of Athens” and “King Stephen.” Of the two, “King Stephen” is the less well-known. Stephen I, the 11th century sainted national hero of Hungary, was instrumental in converting the Hungarian people and neighboring tribes to Christianity. We’ll hear Beethoven’s incidental music, shorn of its frequently-performed overture.
Four years later, he provided music for “Leonore Prohaska,” a play by Johann Friedrich Duncker. Duncker was cabinet secretary to the King of Prussia. Leonore Prohaska is a warrior maiden who disguises herself as a man to fight in a war of liberation. As it turned out, the play was cancelled, and the music was never performed in the context for which it was intended. In fact, it wasn’t even published until 1888. Beethoven’s efforts were not for nothing, however, as Duncker later persuaded the King to underwrite the “Missa solemnis.”
We’ll hear the funeral march from “Leonore Prohaska,” which Beethoven arranged from the slow movement of his Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat Major.
In 1822, Beethoven was enlisted to compose music for the reopening of the Theater in der Josefstadt. The director recalled the success of the Beethoven-Kotzebue double-bill in Pest, and requested a revival of “The Ruins of Athens.” Beethoven offered to revise the existing numbers of his 1811 score and compose new ones to suit the director. A new text was provided by Carl Meisl, about whose talents Beethoven was less than enthusiastic.
Meisl’s occasional poem describes an exchange between the actor Thespis and the god Apollo and contrasts Greece under the Ottoman Turks to the freedom of Vienna. A chorus celebrates dance, altars are decorated for the entry of the Muses, and the work ends with the obligatory chorus, “Heil unserm Kaiser.” Beethoven wrote a new overture for the piece, which is performed fairly frequently, but this evening it will be omitted to allow time for some of the lesser-heard numbers.
Don’t forget, December 16 is Beethoven’s birthday. Tomorrow morning, we’ll return to the Beethoven symphonies with a vengeance, presenting a marathon of the composer’s most popular and revered works, in recordings lovingly curated by WWFM hosts. The celebration begins at 9 a.m. I’ll be along at 4 p.m. to present Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 & 9, in performances that have meant a lot to me personally.
At 8 p.m., David Dubal and Jed Distler will lend cinnamon to the strudel, with two hours of Beethoven’s piano music and some personal reflections on the composer.
For tonight, Beethoven treads the boards. I hope you’ll join me for “Beethoven, Incidentally” – incidental music by Ludwig van Beethoven – this Sunday at 10 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
