The fifth song of Beethoven’s Opus 75 is “An den fernen Geliebten” (“To her distant lover”) — not to be confused with “An die ferne Geliebte” (“To his distant beloved”), which is the more renowned Opus 98 song cycle from 1816.
Beethoven’s “An den fernen Geliebten” is set to a poem by Christian Ludwig Reissig, who in February 1809 at the age of 25 joined the Austrian army and was seriously wounded three months later. He wrote poetry and commissioned composers to set his poems to music.
Beethoven “An den fernen Geliebten” has six stanzas set in strophic form, and bemoans the loss of love. Here is Paul Reid’s translation from The Beethoven Song Companion:
Once sweet repose and golden peace dwelt
Within my breast;
Now, alas, since we parted, every pleasure
Is joined to melancholy.
I still hear the tolling hour of our parting echo,
So dull and hollow,
In the evening song of the nightingales I hear
Your farewell.
Wherever I turn, your lovely image
Hovers before me,
Filling my heart with anxious yearning
And delight.
May it entreat your noble heart to recall
The words of love:
“Ah friend, whom I have chosen above all others,
Forget me not!”
Whenever a breeze stirs your curls
By moonlight,
That is my spirit, as it whispers imploringly:
Forget me not!
If you should ever pine for me by the light of the full moon,
Like a zepher
My words will waft melodiously through the air to you:
“Until we meet again!”
#Beethoven250 Day 223
“An den fernen Geliebten” (Opus 75, No. 5), 1809
Mio Nakamune owns the only live performance of this song on YouTube. She follows it with Opus 75, No. 6 (scheduled for tomorrow).
In the invaluable Beethoven Song Companion, Paul Reid evaluates this song and then suggests a pattern:
The song is a simple strophic setting in a bland 6/8 metre, and lacks the freshness of some other Reissig settings. It almost seems that Beethoven had a “feminine” style for songs with piano which are clearly intended for a female singer. The preceding song of op. 75, Gretels Warnung, borders on the insipid, and two songs from op. 52, Feuerfarb’ and Mollys Abschied similarly suggest that Beethoven had difficulty in identifying strongly with a female persona in the sphere of solo song. Beethoven’s “feminine” style is no doubt an inheritance from the eighteenth century, when collections of simple songs designed to be sung by an amateur female performer, often to her own accompaniment, were commonplace. The unassuming key of G major, the slowish tempo (larghetto) and the narrow vocal compass of a sixth all encourage simplicity of performance and utterance.
But then there’s Kennst du das Land (Day 219), or is Mignon a very special case?