Seufzer eines Ungeliebten – Gegenliebe (Sigh of an unloved one – Love requited), WoO 118, is a song (lied) for voice and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed at the end of 1794 or in 1795. The text comes from two related poems from the collection Lyrische Gedichte (1789) by Gottfried August Bürger.[1] Both poems are written from the point of view of young man experiencing unrequited love: "Seufzer eines Ungeliebten" expresses the conceit that while all the creatures of the woodlands and fields have a partner to love them, the young man has none; "Gebenliebe" expresses a blissful fantasy on the young man's part that his love is returned.
The composer was about 24 when he wrote the song; he had arrived in Vienna in 1792 to study and build his career. Beethoven's primary teacher in Vienna was Joseph Haydn, who had himself already set the "Gegenliebe" poem to music (1784,[2] Hob. XVIIa: 16). Beethoven also studied with Antonio Salieri, who helped him in his goal of becoming an opera composer.[3] Beethoven's sketches for "Seufzer/Gegenliebe" are mixed with that of another song about unrequited love, Adelaide, which unlike 'Seufzer/Gegenliebe' was published at the time and was quite successful. It is unknown whether Beethoven attempted to publish "Seufzer/Gegenliebe" at the time of its composition. Much later in his lifetime, Beethoven offered the song to the publisher Peters of Leipzig, in a letter from 5 June 1822,[4] but in the end it was published only posthumously (1837) by Anton Diabelli.[5] The work appears today in standard editions of Beethoven's songs and is occasionally performed and recorded.
As his friend Franz Gerhard Wegeler later remembered, Beethoven's composition of love songs coincided with a time that he himself was frequently in love:
"In Vienna, at least for as long as I lived there, Beethoven was still engaged in romantic relationships, and at that time he had made conquests which would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for more than one Adonis. - Can a man, without having known love in its most intimate mysteries, have composed Adelaide, Fidelio and so many other works? […] I will note again that, as far as I know, all the objects of his passions were of a high rank."[6]
However, the fact that "all the objects of his passions were of a high rank" was problematic, as biographers such as Jan Swafford have pointed out: it was quite inappropriate for a commoner like Beethoven to form a love match with an aristocratic woman, and indeed Beethoven never succeeded in his life in creating a permanent romantic attachment; he died unwed. Hence it is possible that the sorrows and wishful thinking given in Bürger's poems resonated with Beethoven's own feelings.[7]
Beethoven encountered Bürger's poems in their published form in the Göttingen Musen-Almanach.[8] Originally, it appears that Bürger wrote the poems separately, then realized their connectedness and had them printed in subsequent editions adjacently, in the order Beethoven encountered.
As can be seen in the text below, Beethoven altered Bürger's words in minor ways.
Seufzer eines Ungeliebten | The sighs of an unloved one | |
Hast du nicht Liebe zugemessen Dem Leben jeder Kreatur? Warum bin ich allein vergessen, Auch meine Mutter du! du Natur? | Hast thou not apportioned love Into the life of every creature? Why then am I alone forgotten By thee, Nature, who art my mother as well? | |
Wo lebte wohl in Forst und Hürde, Und wo in Luft und Meer, ein Tier, Das nimmermehr geliebet würde? — Geliebt wird alles außer mir! | Where, in the woods and enclosed fields, Where in the air and the seas, has there ever lived a creature That never was loved? — All are loved, excepting myself. | |
Wenn gleich [im Hain, auf Flur und Matten][9] Sich Baum und Staude, Moos und Kraut Durch Lieb' und Gegenliebe gatten; Vermählt sich mir doch keine Braut. | Although in the groves, meadows, and pastures Even the trees and bushes, the mosses and herbs Are joined by love and love returned, Yet no bride joins herself to me. | |
Mir wächst vom süßesten der Triebe Nie Honigfrucht zur Lust heran. Denn ach! mir mangelt Gegenliebe, [Die Eine, nur Eine][10] gewähren kann. | My sweetest passions never ripen Into honey-fruits to enjoy. Alas! I lack the requited love, That only one[11] can grant me. |
Gegenliebe | Requited love | ||
Wüßt' ich, wüßt' ich, daß du mich Lieb und wert ein bißchen hieltest, Und von dem, was ich für dich, Nur ein Hundertteilchen fühltest; | If only, if only I knew that you loved me And valued me a little, And that you felt for me But a hundredth of what I feel for you; | ||
Daß dein Danken meinem Gruß Halben Wegs entgegen käme, Und dein Mund den Wechselkuß Gerne gäb' und wiedernähme: | That your thanks for my greeting Were returned but halfway, And your lips the proffered kisse Gladly gave and received in return: | ||
Dann, o Himmel, außer sich, Würde ganz mein Herz zerlodern! Leib und Leben könnt' ich dich Nicht vergebens lassen fodern | — | Then, oh heavens, beside itself, My whole heart would burst asunder into flames! I could let you claim -- not in vain -- My body and my life | |
|---|---|---|---|
Gegengunst erhöhet Gunst, Liebe nähret Gegenliebe, Und entflammt zu Feuersbrunst, Was ein Aschenfünkchen bliebe. | Favor brings forth increased favor, Love nurtures requited love, And ignites a tempest of fire From what else had remained but a spark among the ashes. |
Seufzer eines Ungeliebten is composed in iambic tetrameter, with the first line of each couplet including an extra final unstressed syllable, so the lines alternate between 9 and 8 syllables. This is a widely used pattern, seen for instance in Goethe's poem Wilkommen und Abschied. "Gegenliebe" is in a version of trochaic tetrameter in which half of the lines are catalectic; i.e. they omit the final eighth syllable. In both poems, the lines are grouped into quatrains with rhyme scheme ABAB.
The song reaches the A above middle C and thus is suited to be sung by a tenor (or, in principle, a soprano) voice. Other singers have sung the work transposed; for instance, the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recorded the work in A minor, a minor third lower than notated.[12]
Pilcher (2021:75) calls the song "formally adventurous," and it is indeed unusual for a composer to incorporate two poems into the same song. Beethoven sets the first stanza of "Seufzer eines Ungeliebten" with recitative, of the kind widely used in opera. Following the recitative comes the main portion of "Seufzer eines Ungeliebten," in a leisurely 3/4 rhythm, marked andantino. This main portion ends not with a tonic cadence, but a loud dominant chord with fermata, making it clear that more is to come. Without pause there follows Beethoven's setting of "Gegenliebe", in 2/4 time with a faster tempo (allegretto).
Cooper (1994) has put forth a distinction among Beethoven's songs: some are "folk-like", with each stanza given a fairly simple setting; others involve a "dramatic, even operatic approach"; "Seufzer/Gegenliebe" falls in the latter category. Orrey (1971), pursuing the same idea, notes that in Italian opera a soloist often would sing a recitative followed by a bipartite aria consisting of a slow passage, the cavatina, followed by a final faster section, the cabaletta; the three portions of "Seufzer/Gegenliebe" correspond to these three standard sections.
Cooper (2008:65) later offered a slight different analogy: the work is a "double song" set in the form of a "miniature Italian cantata." Historically, cantata and oratorio arias tended to follow operatic models.[13] The use of term "cantata" for a solo vocal work with piano would have been familiar in Beethoven's time; his contemporaneous song Adelaide, likewise operatic in style, was first published as a "cantata".[14]
The key structure of "Seufzer/Gegenliebe" is centered on the tonality of C. The recitative is in c minor, the rest of "Seufzer" mostly in E flat major (the relative major of c minor), coming to a close on c minor again, and "Gegenliebe" is in C major. The shift from stormy c minor to exultant C major was a tonal pattern Beethoven would adopt again later on, in the Fifth Symphony (1808) and the last piano sonata (1822).
The operatic style of "Seufzer/Gegenliebe", and the fact that Beethoven never published it, suggests regarding it as a sort of preparation for more prominent works he created later on. Thus, Orrey (1971) sees "Seufzer/Gegenliebe" as an early preparation for Beethoven's concert aria "Ah! perfido" (1796), a more extended work written for soprano solo and orchestra. "Ah! perfido" shares the recitative-cavatina-cabaletta structure of "Seufzer/Gegenliebe,"and its cavatina section is likewise in E flat and set in 3/4 time. As with "Seufzer/Gegenliebe," the text deals with "thwarted love" (Orrey). Further on, Pilcher (p. 128) notes that Beethoven deployed the recitative-cavatina-cabaletta structure of "Seufzer/Gegenliebe" in his only opera Fidelio (1805-1814); it is used for the major solo scenes of his protagonists, Leonore and Florestan.
The melody of "Gegenliebe," given below, continued to evolve in Beethoven's mind as his career progressed.
Only slightly altered (with masculine rather than feminine endings), the theme appears in Beethoven's Choral Fantasy opus 80 for piano, chorus and orchestra, from 1808. The Choral Fantasy version is in turn widely viewed as a foreshadowing of the "Ode to Joy" melody employed in the final movement of the Ninth Symphony (1824).[1]
Notes
Sources