Egmont (drama music)

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Egmont Overture (9:01)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe demands incidental music for his drama Egmont . There have been various attempts to meet this requirement, some of them commissioned by the poet himself. By far the best-known and most widely used incidental music for Egmont comes from Ludwig van Beethoven and forms his op. 84. The first part of this orchestral work, the overture , became particularly well-known and is often performed separately from Goethe's tragedy and without a scenic performance in the concert hall. Beethoven's incidental music was created in September 1809 commissioned by the Vienna Burgtheater and was on 15 June 1810 in Vienna during a production of Goethe's Egmont premiered .

Integration of the music into the drama

From the outset, Goethe intended music to be a constitutive part of his tragedy. This applies first of all to Klärchen's songs, which characterize her attitude more closely; but it applies to a greater extent to the fifth and final act. The suicide of the female main character through poison is not shown in the drama, unlike, for example, in Schiller's Kabale und Liebe . Rather, on the empty stage, initially lit by a flickering lamp, "music indicative of Klärchen's death" should be heard. “Music” is also required for Egmont's later monologue and above all for the dream in which Klärchen appears to him. The drama ends with a “victory symphony”. But Goethe also thought from the outset of an overture and entractes between the acts, as can be seen from the composition commission he had given to Philipp Christoph Kayser before the drama was printed .

construction

Beethoven's incidental music consists of the following parts:

  1. Overture. Sostenuto, ma non troppo - Allegro
  2. Song: The drum stirred
  3. Intermediate act I: Andante
  4. Intermediate act II: Larghetto
  5. Song: joyful and sorrowful, thoughtful
  6. Intermediate act III: Allegro
  7. Intermediate act IV: Poco sostenuto e risoluto
  8. Music indicative of Clärchen's death: Larghetto
  9. Melodrama: Poco sostenuto
  10. Victory Symphony: Allegro con brio

Five of the ten pieces are directly integrated into the plot of the drama and are required by the text of the drama: the two songs of Klärchen (No. 2 and 5), the "music, characterizing Klärchen's death", which represents the death of Egmont's lover, which is not shown on the stage ( No. 8), the melodrama that sounds along with Egmont's spoken words and which later accompanies the pantomime of Klärchen's dream appearance (No. 9), and finally the “Victory Symphony”, which Goethe explicitly calls for as the end of the tragedy (No. 10). The other five pieces, the overture and the four inter-acts , are less closely related to the drama, but conform to contemporary conventions.

Declamation texts

The incidental music is written for a staged performance. In a performance in the concert hall, the context of the plot is missing, so that often only the overture is given. Friedrich Mosengeil therefore wrote declamation texts for a male speaker to replace this context and sent them to Goethe. Franz Grillparzer later revised this draft text. In Grillparzer's version, it is still often used today when all incidental music is to be played in the concert hall. However, there are also some other attempts at a connecting text, such as by Michael Bernays . Occasionally, no declamation texts are used at performances.

literature

  • Helga Lühning: Egmont op. 84. In: Heinz von Loesch, Claus Raab (ed.): The Beethoven Lexicon . Laaber Verlag, Laaber 2006, pp. 208-211

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl Konrad Polheim (ed.): Between Goethe and Beethoven. Connecting texts to Beethoven's Egmont music. With introduction and commentary . Bouvier, Bonn 1982. See also the correspondence between Mosengeil and Goethe, in: Momme Mommsen, Katharina Mommsen (ed.): The emergence of Goethe's works in documents, Volume 3, de Gruyter, Berlin 2006, pp. 235–237.