Abendlied unterm gestirnten Himmel

First page of the first printed edition, 1820. Click to enlarge.

Abendlied unterm gestirntem Himmel (Evening song under the starry heaven), WoO 150, is a song by Ludwig van Beethoven composed in 1820. The work is a setting of a poem believed to be by Otto Heinrich von Loeben, who wrote it under the pseudonym H. Goeble. Albrecht (2012:7) summarizes the message of the song thus: it "describes the soul, after the sun has set, contemplating the starry heavens, longing to return there, and finally rising up to the heavenly light. The earthly witness realizes that his pilgrimage below will not last long, and that he too will soon soar above to his heavenly reward before God's throne." Barry Cooper (2001:264) has called the song "one of the finest examples of Beethoven's combination of simplicity and profundity that is so characteristic of his late style."

Composition history

Beethoven as portrayed by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller in 1823

In 1820, when Beethoven wrote Abendlied, he was 49 years old. 1820 was a year in which the sorrows of his life (deafness, illness, failure to find a marriage partner) were augmented by a new form of trouble: he became involved in a extended legal confrontation with his hated sister-in-law Johanna van Beethoven over custody of his nephew (Johanna's son) Karl. The composition of "Abendlied" competed for Beethoven's time with the preparation of a massive (48-page) legal document intended to win this case. Cooper (2001:242–243) is led to speculate whether the consolatory message of the "Abendlied" poem, and its mention of evil foes, may have inclined Beethoven to set this text in song.

Professionally, Beethoven had already experienced (ca. 1814) the peak of his public acclaim. In 1820 he was still famous, indeed venerated, but also somewhat neglected. The decline of his popularity may have been related to the often-greater difficulty for the listener's ear of the works he was composing, described today as belonging to his "Late Period".

As was his practice, Beethoven made sketches for this work. A few of these survive, in a sketchbook that Beethoven employed from April 1819 to April 1820. The Abendlied sketches appear immediately after sketches for the Missa solemnis and precede sketches for what became the Op. 109 piano sonata. All of the surviving "Abendlied" sketch material consists of dead ends and none of it appears in the finished work.

The version of the song in Beethoven's own hand, now kept in the Austrian National Library, was dated by him 4 March 1820; however, Albrecht (2012:17), having viewed this ms., indicates that this was not Beethoven's final version but only an "advanced draft". Only the printed version reflects the composer's final intentions, for no other drafts or copies survive.

Beethoven dedicated the work to Dr. Anton Braunhofer (1780–1845), a physician and a professor at the University of Vienna. Braunhofer had treated both Beethoven and the composer's nephew Karl.

Text

Otto Heinrich von Loeben, conjectured as the author of the text of "Abendlied". Portrait by Wilhelm Hensel

The title page of the song gives H. Goeble as the author of the verses. The identity of this poet was a mystery to scholars for many years; for example Cooper (2001) calls the poet "completely unknown". However, more recent research by Albrecht (2012) suggests a plausible candidate: Count Otto Heinrich von Loeben (1786–1825), using "Goeble" as a pseudonym. The basis of his case is close parallels in autobiographical detail between the poems published by Loeben under his own name and those published by "Goeble".

Count Loeben was the son of a high-ranking government official in Protestant Dresden. He originally studied law, but chose to pursue a literary career, publishing novels as well as poetry in various journals. His poem (in German), with English translation, is given below.

Wenn die Sonne nieder sinket Und der Tag zur Ruh sich neigt; Luna freundlich leise winket, Und die Nacht herniedersteigt; Wenn die Sterne prachtig schimmern, Tausend Sonnenstrassen flimmern; Fiihlt die Seele sich so gross, Windet sich vom Staube los.	When the sun sinks down And the day tilts to its rest, Luna beckons gently and kindly, And the night descends; When the stars gleam splendidly, And a thousand sun-roads twinkle; The soul feels so immense, And wrenches free from the dust.
Schaut so gem nach jenen Sternen, Wie zuriick in's Vaterland, Hin nach jenen lichten Fernen, Und vergisst der Erde Tand; Will nur ringen, will nur streben, Ihrer Hiille zu entschweben: Erde ist ihr eng und klein, Auf den Sternen mocht' sie sein.	It gazes so gladly at those stars, As if back to its fatherland, Towards those distant lights, And forgets all worldly trifles; It wants only to struggle and strive To soar away from its mortal frame: The world is too narrow and small, Among the stars it longs to be.
Ob der Erde Stiirme toben, Falsches Glück den Bosen lohnt: Hoffend blicket sie nach oben, Wo der Sternenrichter thront. Keine Furcht kann sie mehr qualen, Keine Macht kann ihr befehlen; Mit verklartem Angesicht Schwingt sie sich zum Himmelslicht.	Though earth's storms are raging, And false fortune rewards the evil, Full of hope it looks upwards Where the Star-judge sits enthroned. No fear can torment it any longer, No power can command it; With transfigured countenance It soars upward toward the heavenly light.
Eine leise Ahnung schauert Mich aus jenen Welten an; Lange, lange nicht mehr dauert Meine Erdenpilgerbahn, Bald hab' ich das Ziel errungen, Bald zu euch mich aufgeschwungen, Ernte bald an Gottes Thron Meiner Leiden schonen Lohn.	A gentle hint thrills Me from those worlds; Not much longer will last My earthly pilgrimage. Soon I shall have reached the goal, Soon soared up to you, I will reap at God's throne The beautiful reward of my earthly sorrows.

The verse is written in trochaic tetrameter (four falling feet per line). Half of the lines are catalectic, meaning they leave off the final stressless syllable and thus have seven syllables total instead of the normal eight. The rhyme scheme of each stanza is ABABCCDD, where lines marked B or D are catalectic.

Music

Beethoven composed the song in E major. The vocal line best fits a high voice (tenor or soprano), though in concerts and recordings it has also been sung by lower voices in transposition.

Beethoven's intended tempo is very moderate, as indicated both by his direction "ziemlich anhaltend" ("rather sustained"), as well as a metronome marking specifying quarter note = 76. A performance at this tempo lasts about five minutes.

Beethoven's musical setting is basically strophic form; there is a single melody that is sung four times, once for each verse of the poem. However, in no two verses does the melody take exactly the same form; and Barry Cooper (2001), in his published description of the song, describes how Beethoven reshapes his melody in various ways to fit the words of each verse.

As Cooper notes, the piano accompaniment is also varied from stanza to stanza; especially for the fifth and sixth lines of each stanza. In the first, second, and final stanzas, the accompaniment for these lines consists of repeated chordal triplets, which for Cooper evoke the twinkling of stars; but in the third stanza, which depicts the rising soul immune to all adversity, the corresponding lines are set to powerful chords in dotted rhythm.

The song ends with a brief coda, with text Beethoven modified from the last two verse lines. In the final notes the piano alone, repeats the last notes of the singer's part, sempre pianissimo, "always very soft". The treble and bass notes of the final measures are widely separated, and John Palmer suggests, "The great space between the right and left hands at the final chord of the song suggests the distance between earthly and heavenly realms."

Publication

Front page of the Wiener Zeitschrift for 2 July 1817. The cover article is about animal magnetism.

The "Abendlied" was first printed in a magazine of the Beethoven's time, the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode (Viennese journal of art, literature, theater, and fashion), founded 1816, as a supplement to their issue of March 28, 1820. At the time, it was not uncommon for magazines to include musical supplements, intended for their readers to perform and enjoy in their homes. The editor of the journal, Johann Schickh (1770–1835), had already published three Beethoven songs as supplements;, and the Wiener Zeitschrift went on to publish Franz Schubert's now-famous song "Die Forelle" (December 1820) as well as eleven other Schubert songs. The magazine also published poetry, including a number of (attributed) poems by Count Loeben, the apparent author of "Abendlied". The story behind the magazine's solicitation of the song is unusually well documented, since by 1820 Beethoven's hearing had become so feeble that he used conversation books (still preserved) to allow people communicate with him

Editor Schickh was the intermediary between the poet Loeben, which whom he worked by correspondence, and Beethoven, whom he visited repeatedly in person. It appears that Loeben knew Beethoven's work and indeed yearned for the glory of having one of his poems set by him; thus Schickx writes in Beethoven's conversation books, "How is it then with my Lieder [songs]? Shall I have the pleasure of receiving some from you? Count Loeben is plaguing me about it, and would be very honored to be immortalized through you." (Cooper (2001: 239)).

Albrecht (2012) discusses Beethoven's motivation for providing Schickh with a song. Most obviously, he received his normal fee of eight ducats, and continued a useful business relationship (which included a free subscription). Another reason may have been that Beethoven decided to take Schickh's side in a power struggle at the journal, pitting Schickh against Joseph Carl Bernard, a Bohemian-born journalist who had been commissioned by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde to write an oratorio libretto for Beethoven. Albrecht suggests that Bernard was bigoted against several groups of people – Protestants, female intellectuals, and Jews – and he freely shared his offensive views in conversations with Beethoven. It was shortly after Bernard shared a particularly unpleasant anti-Semitic story with Beethoven that the composer commenced work on the song that Schickh had been hoping for; he also cut back on his interactions with Bernard. Albrecht suggests that Beethoven had simply had enough of Bernard's remarks.

Beethoven assigned no opus number to "Abendlied", following his consistent practice for the fifteen works that he published in magazines. The WoO 150 number that identifies the song (WoO = Werk ohne Opuszahl, work without opus number) was assigned much later (1955) in the Beethoven catalog created by Georg Kinsky and Hans Halm.

References

Sources

• Albrecht, Theodore (2012) Otto Heinrich Graf von Loeben (1786–1825) and the Poetic Source of Beethoven's "Abendlied unterm gestirnten Himmel", WoO 150. Bonner Beethoven-Studien 10:7–32, ed. Bernhard R. Appel.
• Cooper, Barry (2001) "Beethoven's 'Abendlied' and the Wiener Zeitschrift". Music & Letters 8:234–250.
• Cooper, Barry (2008) Beethoven. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Pereira, Artur (2021) Beethoven's Dedications: Stories Behind the Tributes. Routledge.
• Pilcher, Matthew (2012) Structure, rhetoric, imagery: Intersections of literary expression and musical narrative in the vocal works of Beethoven. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Manchester.
• Rosen, Charles (1997) The Classical Style. New York: Norton.

External links

• "Abendlied unter'm gestirnten Himmel": Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Recorded performance, with simultaneous display of the score on YouTube, Peter Schreier (tenor), Walter Olbertz (piano)]