Beethoven/Schiller

[rayo]

Hi
This is my first posting to this site.I'm from Vienna and just wanted toknow if anyone knows if Beethoven and Schiller worked together besides for his 9th!?

thx
R.

[Peter]

Beethoven and Schiller never actually met and he made very few settings of Schiller texts. In 1810 he sketched a stanza from 'Das Madchen aus der Fremde' - he used the final line from Die Jungfrau von Orleans 'Kurts ist der Schmerz, und ewig ist die freude!' in canons WoO163 and WoO166. According to Czerny, Beethoven and Gryowetz were chosen to write the music for William Tell and Egmont - Beethoven apparently wanted the former but set the Goethe instead.

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'Man know thyself'

[Geratlas]

Hi Rayo! Peter is right you know: they never met in real life, though atleast LvB said himself to know Schiller well enough by heart from reading his texts of plays and poems. I took the liberty here to assemble the lot of Beethoven's music to words of Schiller in presumed chronological order:
c1793 An die Freude: Song presumably composed and lost, though there is no proof that it ever existed.
c1798 An die Freude: Song sketches on Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen, C major
1810 Das Mädchen aus dem Fremde: Song sketch with clarinet and piano;
and: on the words In einem Thal bei Armen Hirten: Song sketch, melody
and: An die Freude: several ideas where the poem was to be joined to a major instrumental work.
1813 Kurz ist der Schmerz, und ewig ist die Freude (Suffering is transitory, but joy is eternal) canon, F minor
1815 Kurz ist der Schmerz, und ewig ist die Freude (Suffering is transitory, but joy is eternal) canon, F major
1817 Gesang der Mönche (Song of the Monks) from Wilhelm (William) Tell.
1823 An die Freude (to Joy): Finale chorus, D major, of the 9th symphony, for which LvB selected only certain stanzas.