Ludwig van Beethoven, "Aus Goethes Faust" (Flohlied), Gesang für Singstimme und Klavier op. 75, Nr. 3, Autograph

Flohlied

A happy crowd of students are sitting in a tavern, drinking heavily and singing bawdy songs. Faust and Mephisto join them. Mephisto adds to the merriment with a song about the takeover of a royal court by a flea. This is the scene "Auerbach's cellar" in Goethe's Faust Part I. The so-called Flohlied has been set to music by many composers, including great names such as Franz Schubert, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz and Modest Mussorgsky. However, what is thought to be the first setting is by Ludwig van Beethoven. Goethe's Faust first appeared in 1808. The Flohlied had, however, already appeared in the same form in the "Faust Fragment" of 1790. The young Beethoven was probably familiar with the Faust Fragment, as he had already made a very extensive musical draft for the first verse of the song in the 1790s. The final version of the song from 1809 (Beethoven wrote this date diagonally across the title page) mainly follows the first draft. Beethoven composed the song as incidental music, so that it could be sung on the stage as part of the tragedy. The accompaniment is simple. The vocal part is not demanding - there are no difficult leaps or complicated rhythms, it is rather declamatory. Goethe's text is divided up into three verses and Beethoven also sets it as a strophic song. He notates the text of each verse in a separate stave, without repeating the musical text. He only adds changes to the rhythm at the points where the declamation diverges. In Goethe's scene everyone joins in with Mephisto's song at the end and they all repeat the two last verses. Beethoven also includes this "chorus" (but does not compose it for several voices). The manner of writing, and also the directions to the copyist which Beethoven wrote on the title page and before the beginning of the chorus, suggest that the autograph score was a copy made by the composer rather than a working autograph score of the composition. (J.R.)

Facsimile edition published by Beethoven-Haus