Unfortunate German translation of the Scottish original
In June 1818 "A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs" - Beethoven's setting of 25 Scottish songs - was published in Britain. Beethoven was by no means a bad businessman and following this, tried to sell the compositions on the continent. In 1820 he found a publisher in Berlin. The publisher Adolph Martin Schlesinger was interested in songs and in 1822 produced a German edition. The corrected copy is the engraver's model for this German original edition (op. 108). Alongside the handwriting of the two different copyists who wrote out the musical text, two further hands can also be recognized: Franz Oliva, Beethoven's friend and unpaid secretary wrote the English text of the songs in the copy, Samuel Heinrich Spiker added the German translation. In order to be able to sell the songs more successfully in Germany, Schlesinger had them translated and printed his edition in both English and German. The songs had originally been written in a Scottish dialect which did not make translating them very easy. The German text is not always very good. Beethoven also mentioned this in a letter to Schlesinger on 9 April 1822 and asked for it to be changed, "I have already written to you about the Scottish songs, that the writer should arrange the long and short syllables in a better manner because the latter often fall on the long notes and the former on the shorter ones. One might be able to pardon this - if the writer were here it would be easy to correct, but I am so busy that it is not possible for me to do so. H. Zelter is a man who knows a great deal about poetry as befits an excellent author, and would soon be able to help you get rid of these small irritations."
Despite Beethoven's suggestion that he turn to Zelter (a friend of Goethe's), the publisher still used Spiker. The German texts were neither corrected nor changed. (J.R.)
