“I am composing Romulus!” Beethoven announced to Georg Friedrich Treitschke in January 1815 concerning the Romulus & Remus opera that they were collaborating on, but adding
and shall begin to write it down one of these days. I will come to you myself! at first once — later on several times, so that we may talk over the whole work and have a consultation about it. (Beethoven Letters, No. 525)
By September, Beethoven had still not begun composition, unhappy over the estimated proceeds from a production. The project eventually died.
Between 1814 and 1826, Beethoven wrote 40 tiny canons, often as little mementos or messages to his friends. As Barry Cooper notes about these canons,
from 1815 onwards Beethoven tended to write several each year. Works as slight as Brauchle, Linke [one of the 1815 canons] may not have much significance in themselves; nevertheless, the canons forced Beethoven to focus on contrapuntal part-writing and voice manipulation as a central issue.… And the polyphonic thinking that he was nurturing in these small canons can perhaps be seen as a foretaste of the great contrapuntal movements of his final period, where every note has a melodic and thematic as well as harmonic significance. (Beethoven pp. 257–8)
Beethoven wrote the four-voice canon “Glück zum neuen Jahr” (Happiness in the New Year!, WoO 165) for his friend Baron Pasqualati, in whose home he often stayed and for whom he wrote the Elegischer Gesang for the anniversary of Pasqualati’s wife’s death (Day 271).
#Beethoven250 Day 281
Canon “Glück zum neuen Jahr” (WoO 165), 1815
A studio recording with animated score and English subtitles.
Beethoven inscribed his canon “Kurz is der Schmerz” (WoO 166) in the album of violinist and composer Ludwig Spohr on 3 March 1815 with the dedication “May you always remember me with affection, dear Spohr, wherever you find true art and true artists.”
Like WoO 163 (Day 264) the three-voice WoO 166 canon is based on the text “Kurz ist der Schmerz und ewig is die Freude!” from Joanna’s last words in Friedrich Schiller’s 1801 play about Joan of Arc, “The Maid of Orleans”: “Brief is the sorrow and endless is the joy!”
#Beethoven250 Day 281
Canon “Kurz ist der Schmerz” (WoO 166), 1815
A studio recording with animated score.