The first 3 of the 6 songs that comprise Beethoven’s Opus 75 are set to texts by Goethe and all 3 are through composed. The last 3 are set to poems by other poets and are in strophic form. Each of these last 3 songs requires only a single page in the published score.
“Gretels Warnung” (“Gretel’s Warning”) is Beethoven’s only song set to a text by Gerhard Anton von Halem, who wrote plays and academic treatises as well as poetry, and who is considered a significant figure in the Late Northern German Enlightenment.
Beethoven first set the poem “Gretels Warnung” to music in 1795, and then revised the score for the Opus 75 collection. The three stanzas are set in simple strophic form. The moralizing text tells of love betrayed, told from the perspective of the abandoned girl.
The text of “Gretels Warnung” is Gretel’s warning to other young girls who may be entrapped as she was. She tells of a young man “Christel, young and handsome” who pursues Gretel
And did not let up
Until he got everything,
Everything, everything.
Alas, many other “girls had eyes for him alone.” They
Won him over;
His heart was enthralled.
He became cold towards me.
Then soon was off,
Leaving me here, leaving me here,
Leaving me here with my heartache.
This is Gretel’s warning:
Behold my downfall,
All you other girls
After whom the traitor now lusts,
And do not trust
A word he says,
Oh, look at me, poor me,
Look at me and flee.”
It’s puzzling what appeal this poem had that Beethoven would set it to music.
#Beethoven250 Day 222
“Gretels Warnung” (Opus 75, No. 4), 1809
There does not seem to be a live performance of this song on YouTube. This is a studio recording.