''Egmont'', Op. 84 by

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

, is a set of incidental music pieces for the 1787 play of the same name by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...

. It consists of an overture followed by a sequence of nine pieces for soprano, male

narrator Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...

, and full symphony orchestra. The male narrator is optional; he is not used in the play and does not appear in some recordings of the complete incidental

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

. Beethoven wrote it between October 1809 and June 1810, and it was premiered on 15 June 1810. The subject of the music and dramatic narrative is the life and heroism of 16th-century nobleman Lamoral, Count of Egmont from the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

. It was composed during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

when the

First French Empire The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire (; Latin: ) after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental E ...

had extended its domination over vast swathes of Europe. Beethoven had famously expressed his great outrage over Napoleon Bonaparte's decision to crown himself Emperor in 1804, furiously scratching out his name in the dedication of the '' Eroica Symphony''. In the music for ''Egmont'', Beethoven expressed his own political concerns through the exaltation of the heroic sacrifice of a man condemned to death for having taken a valiant stand against oppression. The Overture became an unofficial anthem of the

1956 Hungarian revolution The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hung ...

. Beethoven composed Klärchen's songs "''Die Trommel gerühret''" ("The drum is a-stirring") and "''Freudvoll und leidvoll''" ("Joyful and woeful") with

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n actress Antonie Adamberger specifically in mind, and she often spoke enthusiastically of her collaboration with him. The music was praised by E.T.A. Hoffmann for its poetry, ''et sa réussite à s'associer à la pièce'' (and its success in associating with the play) and Goethe himself declared that Beethoven had expressed his intentions with "a remarkable genius." The overture is powerful and expressive, one of the last works of Beethoven's middle period. It has become as famous a composition as the ''

Coriolan Overture The ''Coriolan Overture'' (german: link=no, Coriolan-Ouvertüre or Ouvertüre zu Coriolan), Op. 62, is a composition written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1807 for Heinrich Joseph von Collin's 1804 tragedy ''Coriolan''. The structure and themes ...

'' and is in a style similar to the Fifth Symphony, which he had completed two years earlier.

Outline of sections

The incidental music comprises the following sections, among which the overture, the lieder ''Die Trommel gerühret'', ''Freudvoll und leidvoll'' and ''Klärchens Tod'' are particularly well-known: # Overture: Sostenuto, ma non troppo – Allegro # Lied: "Die Trommel gerühret" # Entracte: Andante # Entracte: Larghetto # Lied: "Freudvoll und leidvoll" # Entracte: Allegro – Marcia # Entracte: Poco sostenuto e risoluto # Klärchens Tod # Melodram: "Süßer Schlaf" # Siegessymphonie (''symphony of victory''): Allegro con brio

Cultural influences

The Hungarian film '' Overture'' by János Vadász, which won the 1965 Cannes Film Festival's Short Film Palme d'Or, uses the complete ''Egmont'' Overture as the soundtrack for a series of images featuring a hatching bird and was described as "among the most ingenious pairings of music and image in the history of the festival."''Overture'' (1965)
''mymoviepicker.com''

References

External links

* * * {{Authority control Music based on works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven Incidental music Overtures 1810 compositions Compositions with a narrator Stefan Zweig Collection Cultural depictions of Dutch men Cultural depictions of Belgian men Cultural depictions of counts