Tyrants often display their power by engaging in completely arbitrary exercises of it. At the end of Act III of Friedrich Schiller’s 1804 play William Tell, the evil Governor Gessler forces the Swiss freedom fighter William Tell to use his crossbow to shoot an apple off his son’s head. Just in case he misses and kills his son, William Tell has another arrow ready for Gessler himself. After Tell successfully hits the apple, Gessler confronts him about the extra arrow and has Tell arrested.
Tell escapes and at the end of Act IV he ambushes Gessler and shoots him with his crossbow. As Gessler lies dying, a fieldguard says “The sacrifice is there — here come the ravens,” referring to a group of friars who surround the dead man. They sing in deep voices:
Death lies about the ways of men,
no term is left for him to end his strife.
Midway along his road, the last ‘Amen’
tears him away from in the midst of life.
Prepared or not, at last he stands alone
to give account before the Judgement Throne.
(translation by Robert David MacDonald)
Beethoven lost the opportunity to write some incidental music for a production of Schiller’s William Tell (Day 240). He probably would have liked to compose a William Tell opera but never came close. (Rossini’s opera came in 1829, two years after Beethoven’s death.)
On 3 May 1817, Beethoven’s violinist friend Wenzel Krumpholz died suddenly of apoplexy. In memory of Krumpholz, Beethoven wrote a short setting of “Gesang der Mönche” (Song of the Monks) from William Tell for three male voices: two tenors and a bass.
#Beethoven250 Day 303
Song of the Monks (WoO 104), 1817
A rare live performance with seven singers. Turn on closed captioning for the German text and English subtitles.
Alexander Wheelock Thayer recorded a charming anecdote about one of the daughters of the schoolmaster who was taking care of Beethoven’s nephew Karl:
On the occasion of Anna Giannatasio’s birthday, Beethoven came and offered a musical congratulation. Approaching her he sang with great solemnity the melody of a canon to the words: “Above all may you lack happiness, and health too —.” Then he stopped and the lady protested that the wish that she might fail in happiness and health was scarcely a kind one; whereupon Beethoven laughed and finished the sentiment with “at no time!”
Thayer reproduced the melody of the canon in his biography of Beethoven (Thayer-Forbes p. 667), and it was later catalogued as WoO 171. In 1978, the canon was discovered to have been composed by Michael Haydn.
#Beethoven250 Day 303
Canon “Glück fehl’ dir” (WoO 171), 1817
This canon by Michael Haydn was once believed to have been composed by Beethoven for the birthday of Anna Giannatasio.