Ludwig van Beethoven, Lieder verschiedener Völker, "Bolero a due" für zwei Singstimmen, Violine, Violoncello und Klavier WoO 158, Nr. 20, Partitur, Autograph

Beethoven goes Spanish

Here you can see the autograph score of the folk-song arrangement of a Spanish Bolero from WoO 158. Beethoven arranged a total of 126 Scottish, Irish and Welsh songs between 1803 and 1820 for the Scottish publisher and collector of folk-songs George Thomson. This inspired Beethoven to do the same with melodies from other countries, which he chose himself and then arranged for voice and piano trio. Although Thomson acquired the rights to the "Lieder verschiedener Völker" ("Songs of different peoples") in November 1818, he did not publish them in the end. The song no. 20 is the second Bolero in the collection known as WoO 158. It begins - contrary to the wrong pagination on the leaf - on the second page. Beethoven gave it the heading "Bolero a due N° 2". The first page contains the last bars of the previous song no. 19, also a Bolero, probably done to ensure the songs remained in the correct sequence. Both leaves of the manuscript came into the possession of the Beethoven-Haus via different routes; they were probably separated in the mid-nineteenth century. They both bear separate marks of authenticity by Anton Schindler, the first leaf from 1831, the second from 1845. (J.R.)