Opus 118: "Elegischer Gesang" для хора и оркестра

Время создания:1814 г.

Ambrosian Singers, хормейстер John McCarthy
London Symphony Orchestra, дир. Michael Tilson Thomas

The Elegiac Song was composed during the summer of 1814 in memory of Eleanore von Pasqualati, the wife of Baron Johann (Beethoven's frequent and favorite landlord beginning in 1804), who had died in childbirth three years earlier. Her music-loving husband, the Empress Maria Theresia's physician, not only tolerated Beethoven's obsessive-compulsive changes of residence but made him feel a member of the family. We don't know who wrote the words, originally assigned to four singers and string quartet and later reworked for small chorus and string orchestra without double-basses. The music, which raises its voice only on the words "himmlischen Geistes," is indubitably the heartfelt product of its composer; its brevity alone is the reason we hear it so seldom in concert.

(All Music Guide)