Christ on the Mount of Olives

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Christ on the Mount of Olives is the only oratorio by Ludwig van Beethoven . The work was premiered in Vienna in 1803, but was not published until 1811. Therefore it bears the relatively high opus number 85 in Beethoven's catalog raisonné .

History of origin

According to Beethoven's first biographer, Anton Schindler , the composer is said to have designed Christ on the Mount of Olives in the summer of 1801 in Hetzendorf . However, there is no evidence of this. It is more likely that he only started composing after his appointment as resident composer of the Theater an der Wien , which took place in January 1803.

Several Beethoven biographers, including Maynard Solomon , Theodore Albrecht and Barry Cooper , suspect a connection with Beethoven's " Heiligenstädter Testament ", which was written six months earlier in October 1802. Albrecht and Cooper draw on parallels in content between the "Heiligenstadt Testament" and the oratorio. In contrast, the Beethoven researcher Sieghard Brandenburg, after evaluating Beethoven's Wielhorsky sketchbook, came to the conclusion that the composer worked on the oratorio in February / March and then again at the end of March / beginning of April 1803, i.e. immediately before the premiere. The fact that the work was actually created under considerable deadline pressure is also evident from the fact that Beethoven himself testified that it took only two weeks to complete.

After the vocal works Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II. (WoO87) and Cantata on the Elevation of Leopold II. (WoO 88), composed in Bonn in 1790 , Christ on the Mount of Olives was the composer's first vocal work. Beethoven chose the oratorio genre because the performance of operas was forbidden due to Lent . The libretto comes from the Viennese writer Franz Xaver Huber , who was also the editor of the Wiener Zeitung .

Christ on the Mount of Olives was premiered on April 5, 1803, a Tuesday during Holy Week in Vienna within an academy, in which the 1st symphony , the 2nd symphony and the 3rd piano concerto were also performed. Beethoven sent his student Ferdinand Ries with the trombone parts to the rehearsing orchestra on the morning of the premiere day , after he had worked them out the night before. Prince Karl Lichnowsky , who was present at the rehearsals, provided the exhausted musicians with sandwiches, cold meat and wine.

To the music

Sentence names

  1. Introduction (Grave - Adagio) - Recitative "Jehovah, you, my father!" - Aria (Allegro) "My soul is shaken!"
  2. Recitative “Tremble, Earth, Jehovah's Son Lies Here” - Aria (Larghetto) “Praise the Savior's Goodness” - Choir (Allegro) “Oh, hail, you redeemed!”
  3. Recitative "Announce, Seraph, your mouth to me" - Duet (Adagio molto) "So rest with all heaviness"
  4. Recitative "Willkommen, Tod!" - Choir (Alla marcia) "We saw him"
  5. Recitative (Tempo della Marcia) "Those who went out to catch me" - Choir (Allegro molto) "Here he is, here he is"
  6. Recitative (Molto allegro) "The daring crowd shall not go unpunished" - Trio and choir (Allegro ma non troppo) "Dig in my veins" - Final chorus (Maestoso - Allegro) "Sing worlds" "Praise him, you angelic choirs"

action

The action of the oratorio begins in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus' arrest is imminent and he asks his father for consolation, but at the same time welcomes his impending death on the cross "for the salvation of humanity". When the warriors appear to arrest Jesus, Jesus asks his father to let the hours of suffering pass "as quickly as the clouds that a storm wind blows". Meanwhile, the disciples plead for mercy. Peter tries to save Jesus, but is prevented from doing so. When Jesus is seized by the warriors, a choir of angels concludes the work.

effect

The general musical newspaper criticized the high admission prices the day after the premiere, but referred to the success that Christ found on the Mount of Olives with the audience. The magazine for the elegant world found the work “on the whole good”, praised some excellent passages in the music, especially an aria by the Seraph with trumpet accompaniment has an excellent effect ”, but said that the text borrows from Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation noted to have. The review in frank was subdued, as well as a renewed report in the general musical newspaper in late July: "Beethoven's Cantata - did not like."

Beethoven revised the oratorio in 1804 for the Passion time. However, Breitkopf & Härtel decided - despite an intervention by Prince Lichnowsky in the spring of 1805 - to publish it in 1811. On this occasion, Beethoven wrote to the publisher that he “wrote my first and early work of this kind in 14 days between all sorts of tumult and other unpleasant, frightening life events (my brother just had a terminal illness)” and that he “wrote an oratorio very differently than back then". As part of this publication, the publisher provided the work with a new text written by Christian Schreiber , contrary to Beethoven's opposition .

Musicologist Jan Caeyers is of the opinion that the failure of Christ on the Mount of Olives is not due to the composition time of two weeks specified by Beethoven - after all, works such as the 1st Piano Concerto , the Violin Concerto and the Mass in C major were created under time pressure - , still in a possibly inadequate text by the experienced librettist Huber. Caeyers sees the reasons, among other things, in a lack of role models during the past decades (apart from Haydn's The Creation and The Seasons ), in Beethoven and Huber's excessively free processing of the Gospel report and in the omission of the role of the narrator. Some operatic elements in the oratorio, which, according to Caeyers, made the oratorio so attractive, would have irritated the audience. Furthermore, the interpretation of the figure of Jesus Christ both as God's Son and as a person who is afraid of the agony of crucifixion and death met with astonishment from the audience.

literature

  • Theodore Albrecht : The Fortnight Fallacy. A Revised Chronology for Beethoven's Christ on the Mount of Olives, op.85, and Wielhorsky Sketchbook. In: Journal of Musicological Research. 11, 1991, pp. 263-284.
  • Sieghard Brandenburg : Beethoven's "Christ on the Mount of Olives op. 85" An uncomfortable work. In: Rainer Cadenbach, Helmut Loos (Hrsg.): Contributions to the history of the oratorio since Handel. Festschrift Günther Massenkeil for his 60th birthday. Bonn 1986, pp. 203-220.
  • Barry Cooper : Beethoven's Oratorio and the Heiligenstädter Testament. In: The Beethoven Journal. 10: 19-24 (1995).
  • Tobias Janz: Christ on the Mount of Olives, op. 85. In: Sven Hiemke (Ed.): Beethoven-Handbuch. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2009, ISBN 978-3-7618-2020-9 , pp. 263-269.
  • Winfried Kirsch: Christ on the Mount of Olives op. 85. In: Albrecht Riethmüller (Ed.): Beethoven. Interpretations of his works. Volume 1. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1994, ISBN 3-89007-305-0 , pp. 660-677.
  • Oratory and Mass. In: Lewis Lockwood : Beethoven. His music - his life. Metzler, 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-02231-8 , pp. 209-213.
  • Anja Mühlenweg: Ludwig van Beethoven. "Christ on the Mount of Olives" op. 85. Studies on the origins and transmission history. Dissertation. Würzburg 2005.
  • Alan Tyson : The 1803 version of Beethoven's "Christ on the Mount of Olives". In: The Musical Quarterly , 56, 1970, pp. 551-584.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anton Schindler, biography of Ludwig van Beethoven , 3rd edition, Münster 1860, volume 1, p. 90
  2. ^ Ludwig van Beethoven, Correspondence. Complete edition , Volume 1, ed. by Sieghard Brandenburg , Munich 1996, p. 149
  3. ^ Theodore Albrecht : The Fortnight Fallacy. A Revised Chronology for Beethoven's Christ on the Mount of Olives, op.85, and Wielhorsky Sketchbook. In: Journal of Musicological Research. 11, 1991, pp. 263-284
  4. ↑ Barry Cooper : Beethoven's Oratorio and the Heiligenstädter Testament. In: The Beethoven Journal. 10: 19-24 (1995).
  5. ^ Sieghard Brandenburg : On the text history of Beethoven's Violin Sonata op. 47. In: Martin Bente (Hrsg.): Music - Edition - Interpretation. Commemorative publication Günther Henle. Munich 1980, pp. 203-220
  6. ^ Ludwig van Beethoven, Correspondence. Complete edition , Volume 2, ed. by Sieghard Brandenburg , Munich 1996, p. 219.
  7. ↑ Christ on the Oehlberge. Oratorio by Franz Xaver Huber. Set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven. [Text book]. 1804 ( digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fdigital.slub-dresden.de%2Fid451441842~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~ double-sided%3D~LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D ).
  8. ^ Franz Gerhard Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries : Biographical notes on Ludwig van Beethoven. Koblenz 1838; Reprint with additions and explanations by Alfred C. Kalischer, Berlin and Leipzig 1906; Reprint Hildesheim etc. 1972, p. 90f.
  9. ^ Anja Mühlenweg: Ludwig van Beethoven. "Christ on the Mount of Olives" op. 85. Studies on the origins and transmission history. Dissertation. Würzburg 2005, p. 154ff.
  10. ^ Ludwig van Beethoven, Correspondence. Complete edition , Volume 2, ed. by Sieghard Brandenburg, Munich 1996, p. 216.
  11. ↑ Jan Caeyers: Beethoven - The lonely revolutionary. CH Beck, 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65625-5 , pp. 309-313.