Beethoven's Choral Fantasy for piano, chorus, and orchestra, Op. 80, is generally paired on double-disc sets with the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125. The main themes of the two works resemble each other (and both resemble that of the almost unknown song Gegenliebe, WoO 118). It makes much more sense, however, to pair the Choral Fantasy with the cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick, Op. 136 (The Glorious Moment), for both are experiments leading to Beethoven's late choral style. Ever since its own time, this cantata has ...
Read More
Beethoven's Choral Fantasy for piano, chorus, and orchestra, Op. 80, is generally paired on double-disc sets with the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125. The main themes of the two works resemble each other (and both resemble that of the almost unknown song Gegenliebe, WoO 118). It makes much more sense, however, to pair the Choral Fantasy with the cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick, Op. 136 (The Glorious Moment), for both are experiments leading to Beethoven's late choral style. Ever since its own time, this cantata has lacked performances. The work was commissioned for a great public event, the celebrations in Vienna of Napoleon's defeat in 1815. Beethoven refused to approve it for publication, accounting for its high opus number, and no one would claim it as one of his masterpieces. Even the people who commissioned it, expecting Egmont music or at least something like Fidelio, must have been puzzled by the ungainly recitatives and the vast fields of tonic and dominant in the cantata. Here Beethoven...
Read Less
