The glorious moment

The Glorious Moment op. 136 is a cantata composition by Ludwig van Beethoven .

Emergence

Beethoven composed the cantata for the opening of the Vienna Congress on November 1, 1814, which, under the direction of Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich, was supposed to regulate the reorganization of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars .

The text comes from Aloys Weißenbach , who had already written the text for a similar composition by Friedrich August Kanne . As Weißenbach reported, the contact came about when he received an invitation to coffee from Beethoven after attending a Fidelio performance on September 26, 1814.

The cantata was performed at an academy on November 29, 1814; During this, Beethoven's 7th Symphony in A major op. 92 and the battle painting Wellington's Victory or the Battle of Vittoria op. 91 were heard . With 68 string parts, Beethoven had the strongest orchestral line-up of his career to date. It is possible that Beethoven originally wanted to perform his choir Your wise founder of happy states (WoO 95) at the opening of the congress .

In 1825 Beethoven considered adding an overture to the cantata.

To the music

Sentence sequence

Choir: "Europe stands!"
Recitative: "O see them close and come closer!" (Leader of the People, Genius, Choir)
Aria with choir: "O heaven, what delight!" (Vienna, choir)
Recitative: "The eye looks" (seer, choir)
Recitative and quartet: "Who held the covenant tight in the storm" (Seherin, Vienna, Führer des Volkes, Genius)
Choir: "It step out"

analysis

The first three movements of the cantata depict the entry of the crowned heads attending the congress. Finally, the fourth and fifth movements deal with the Congress itself. In the final movement, a popular choir concludes the cantata.

With its block-like, syllabic, homophonic and homorhythmic setting in choir and orchestra at the beginning and the end, the opening choir resembles the opening choir of Ihr wise founder happy states (WoO 95).

In the second movement, the two soloists (bass and tenor), accompanied by the solo cello and followed by a pastoral choir of the people, announce the royal congress participants.

The third sentence addresses the individual congress participants. The music takes a back seat, so that the audience could focus their attention on those addressed during the premiere and, as Beethoven's secretary Anton Felix Schindler reported, let their eyes wander to the respective regents. The text of the aria following the recitative contains parallels to Friedrich Schiller's Ode To Joy , which Beethoven later set to music in his Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 . This conception was probably also the reason why the cantata was no longer as successful in the performances following the premiere on December 2nd and 25th, 1814, when the political celebrities were no longer present, as it was at the premiere itself.

The aria of the fourth movement has the character of a prayer.

Emperor Franz I of Austria , the host of the congress, left out in the third sentence , is mentioned in the fourth sentence.

During the slow opening part of the last movement, the children's, women's and men's choirs join in and bring the cantata to a close in a choral fugue sung together with Presto as the finale.

effect

Beethoven's secretary Anton Felix Schindler reported on the performance:

“The mood of the gathering, consisting of almost 6000 listeners, but also that of the large crowd of those involved in the orchestra and choir, cannot be described. The awe-inspiring reluctance to give each loud applause gave the whole thing the character of a grand church celebration. Everyone seemed to feel that such a moment would never return in their life. Only one thing was missing from the celebration: Wellington's presence "

- Anton Felix Schindler : Anton Felix Schindler: Biography of Ludwig van Beethoven , 2 volumes, Münster, 3rd edition (1860), p. 198

It was probably closer to 3000 than the 6000 mentioned by Schindler who attended the premiere, who were impressed not only by the “perfection” of the composition, as attested by the “ Wiener Zeitung ” , but also by the events of the congress itself.

The fact that Beethoven, who otherwise vehemently defended ideal values such as equality and freedom of the individual, wrote a superficial tribute music for the aristocratic class with the glorious moment , has sparked discussion in Beethoven research. The explanations here range from criticism of the political events in the form of exaggerated musical superficiality to purely financial considerations. Cook, on the other hand, considers a division of Beethoven's work into "good" music with a deeply humane statement on the one hand and "bad" music devoid of content to be impossible, because such a distinction was inconceivable in Vienna at the time of Beethoven Glorious Moment and the 9th Symphony are too conspicuous. According to musicologist Tobias Janz, the reception of the cantata will always remain controversial because the cantata is too closely related to the specific event of the Congress of Vienna.

literature

supporting documents

Choral music for the Congress of Vienna - »You wise founders of happy states« WoO 95 and »The glorious moment« op. 136 . In: Sven Hiemke (ed.): Beethoven manual. Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2009, ISBN 978-3-7618-2020-9 , pp. 273-279.

Web links

The Glorious Moment, Op. 136 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project

Individual evidence

↑ New Beethoven Complete Edition, on behalf of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, ed. By Joseph Schmidt-Görg ( 1961ff .), Martin Staehelin (1976ff.), Sieghard Brandenburg (1983ff.) And Ernst Hettrich (1990ff.), Munich 1961ff., Volume X / I
^ Aloys Weißenbach: My trip to the Congress. Truth and Poetry , Vienna, 1816, p. 164
↑ from Beethoven's diary of 1815, quoted from Albrecht Riethmüller: Wellingtons Sieg op.91 . In: Interpretations , 1994, p. 39
↑ ^a ^b Sven Hiemke (ed.): Beethoven manual. Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2009, p. 276
^ Michael Ladenburger: The Vienna Congress in the mirror of music . In: Beethoven. Between Revolution and Restoration , ed. by Helga Lühning and Sieghard Brandenburg , Bonn, 1989, p. 303f.
^ Nicholas Cook: The Other Beethoven: Heroism, the Canon, and the Works of 1813-14 . In: 19th Century Music 27/1 (2003), p. 4f.
^ William Kinderman : Beethoven , Oxford and New York, 1995, p. 180
^ Nicholas Cook: The Other Beethoven: Heroism, the Canon, and the Works of 1813-14 . In: 19th Century Music 27/1 (2003), pp. 21f.
↑ Sven Hiemke (ed.): Beethoven manual. Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2009, p. 274

[1] New Beethoven Complete Edition, on behalf of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, ed. By Joseph Schmidt-Görg ( 1961ff .), Martin Staehelin (1976ff.), Sieghard Brandenburg (1983ff.) And Ernst Hettrich (1990ff.), Munich 1961ff., Volume X / I

[2] Aloys Weißenbach: My trip to the Congress. Truth and Poetry , Vienna, 1816, p. 164

[3] rom Beethoven's diary of 1815, quoted from Albrecht Riethmüller: Wellingtons Sieg op.91 . In: Interpretations , 1994, p. 39

[Handbuch-276-4] Sven Hiemke (ed.): Beethoven manual. Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2009, p. 276

[5] Michael Ladenburger: The Vienna Congress in the mirror of music . In: Beethoven. Between Revolution and Restoration , ed. by Helga Lühning and Sieghard Brandenburg , Bonn, 1989, p. 303f.

[6] Nicholas Cook: The Other Beethoven: Heroism, the Canon, and the Works of 1813-14 . In: 19th Century Music 27/1 (2003), p. 4f.

[7] William Kinderman : Beethoven , Oxford and New York, 1995, p. 180

[8] Nicholas Cook: The Other Beethoven: Heroism, the Canon, and the Works of 1813-14 . In: 19th Century Music 27/1 (2003), pp. 21f.

[9] Sven Hiemke (ed.): Beethoven manual. Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2009, p. 274