DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (May 30, 2020)
Felix Mendelssohn was the grandson of the great philosopher and founder of the Jewish Enlightenment, Moses Mendelssohn (mentioned earlier in this series, on May 19th, 2020 in The Late Beethoven and the New Synagogue. Though the family was steeped in music, Felix and his sister Fanny, were way ahead of their time. Felix would play, with great enthusiasm, Beethoven's late String Quartets on the piano, for anyone who would listen. Most people, including his own father, found them to be incomprehensible. In 1825, he sent his sister Fanny a copy of Beethoven's monumental Hammerklavier Sonata. While it is often claimed that the first successful performance of this difficult work was by Franz Liszt in 1836, Felix often said, on being praised for his piano playing, "Wait 'til you hear my sister!" She may well have been the first to play it.
On the news of Beethoven's death, in 1827, Felix and Fanny composed a series of 12 songs, Op. 9. (3 were composed by Fanny and the rest by Felix. However, at the time, they were all published under Felix' name, because the family thought it was not proper for a woman to compose music.) One of them was called "Frage", or “Question”. For a long time the words were credited to a poet named Voss. Later, Felix' nephew insisted that Felix wrote both the music and the words. The poem goes as follows:
Ist es wahr? Ist es wahr?
Daß du stets dort in dem Laubgang,
An der Weinwand meiner harrst?
Und den Mondschein und die Sternlein
Auch nach mir befragst?
Ist es wahr? Sprich!
Was ich fühle, das begreift nur,
Die es mit fühlt,
Und die treu mir ewig,
Treu mir ewig, ewig bleibt.
Is it true? Is it true
that over there in the leafy walkway, you always
wait for me by the vine-draped wall?
And that with the moonlight and the little stars
you consult about me also?
Is it true? Speak!
What I feel, only one other grasps --
who feels with me
and stays ever faithful to me,
eternally faithful
The video includes the words in German only.
How do we know this is a tribute to Beethoven? We invite you to go back to the May 7th, 2020 post—“Beethoven's Sense of Humor”. We printed there, the enigma that opens the 4th movement of his String Quartet In F Major, Op. 135. Compare Beethoven's "Muss es Sein?" (Must it be?) to Mendelssohn's "Ist es war?" (Is it true?)
Also, does Ist es war? (Is it true?) simply mean: Is it true that Beethoven is dead? It does, but it also means more. Who
is eternally faithful: Mendelssohn to Beethoven, or Beethoven to Mendelssohn, or both? The song was but a preparatory exercise for Felix, for an entire string quartet—String Quartet, Op. 13, in A minor, which we will examine tomorrow.