Happy Birthday, Beethoven!
A suggestion for more Beethoven in your choir
The 2020 Beethoven anniversary year began in splendid style. The birthday boy’s music was heard on countless channels, and the impending birthday was on everyone’s lips. But then a little virus brought everything to a grinding halt. Nothing could take place. Officially the anniversary has been extended to 2021, but will even that be possible? We’ll see. Nevertheless, the next anniversary is basically just around the corner. 2027 is the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. But first we have a suggestion for you right now about how you can bridge the corona-enforced pause with your choir – and at the same time celebrate the great master’s 250th birthday, which falls in mid-December, in appropriate style. For if this event were to be cancelled completely, well, that really wouldn’t do!
Benedict Bierey (1772–1840) orchestrated the first movement of the famous “Moonlight Sonata” and added a four-part choral movement to it, which he underlaid with the text of the Kyrie from the Latin mass. The result is as astounding as it is harmonious! For Carus, Andreas Gräsle has arranged this version for choir and organ, which, like the original movement for piano, is in C sharp minor. The work, which almost anyone can sight-read, will lighten any rehearsal – whether it is entirely online or masked (hummed!) – and is guaranteed to be an unforgettable highlight. Or you can record the piano part and make the audio or video available to your singers. They can then record their own sung part and make this available for a choral sound-collage, depending on their technical abilities! And that’s how a fitting AND covid-secure birthday serenade can be performed. Have fun!
As well as this, choral director Tristan Meister has put together a couple of ideas from the Beethoven Choral Collection for you, so you can celebrate the composer with your choir – when rehearsals are possible again with distancing. The pieces chosen demonstrate that a delightful Beethoven program for choir is absolutely possible, even if the composer is not primarily famed for his vocal music – apart from the grandiose finale of the 9th Symphony.
CD Carus 83.502
Beethoven für Chor
Deutscher Jugendkammerchor
Nicolai Krügel, piano
Florian Benfer, conductor
Beethoven Choral Collection
CD Beethoven for choir
Kyrie based on the Adagio of the so-called "Moonlight Sonata"
Kyrie. Version for choir and piano
Kyrie. Version for choir and organ
In his compositions Beethoven paved the way for the genre of Romantic art song giving us, for example, an extremely expressive piece of music in Ich liebe dich. So it makes sense to design a program which concentrates entirely on this less wellknown, chamber music side of the composer. This includes his Erlkönig fragment arranged by Jaakko Mäntijärvi, the folk song arrangement Auld Lang Syne, and Marmotte, with its melody by Beethoven which has now become a folk song. Even simple homophonic settings, such as Freund Hein or Sehnsucht, can best reveal their respective moods in a program of this kind, and can easily be combined with comparable Romantic compositions.
Arrangements of art songs for choir by other composers, such as those published regularly by Clytus Gottwald, can be excellently combined in this concert program with works by Beethoven. Often, a juxtaposition of two songs with the same text can be really attractive, particularly with works by contemporary composers. The well-known melodies such as Down by the Salley gardens or Bruder Jakob which Gunnar Eriksson has arranged in his Freude-Quodlibet can form the basis for a folk song section in a concert program; this might also include, for example, a selection from Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Lieder im Freien zu singen or Renaissance madrigals. The thematically varied works by Beethoven at his most lyrical therefore offer a broad range of possibilities for combining with works of all periods, and the convincing choral arrangements can easily be integrated into any a cappella program.
Beethoven / Schindler Marmotte (no. 26)
Beethoven / Mäntijärvi Erlkönig (no. 12)
Beethoven / Cornelius Freund Hein (no. 16)
Beethoven / Müller Sehnsucht (no. 36)
Beethoven / Mezzalira O care selve (no. 29)
Beethoven / Høybye Ich liebe dich (no. 23)
Beethoven / Gottwald Neue Liebe, neues Leben (no. 28)
Beethoven Auld Lang Syne (no. 3)
Beethoven / Eriksson Freude-Quodlibet (no. 15)
Duration: 30 minutes
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