Ludwig van Beethoven: Musik zu einem Ritterballett WoO 1 (1791)

0:00 Marsch
1:54 Deutscher Gesang
2:49 Jagdlied
4:27 Romanze
5:52 Kriegslied
6:52 Trinklied
8:34 Deutscher Tanz
9:05 Coda

Count Ferdinand Ernst von Waldstein (1762 - 1823) was one of Beethoven's most important patrons in Bonn; he also helped Beethoven, through letters of introduction, infiltrate the aristocracy in Vienna. A lover of music, Count Waldstein recognized Beethoven's genius and commissioned from the young composer music for a Ritterballet (Knights' Ballet), produced and co-choreographed by the Count himself. The playbill for the first performance, given on March 6, 1791 in Bonn, does not mention the name of the composer, and a reporter for the Bonn Theaterkalender credited Waldstein with the creation of both the scenario and music for this "characteristic ballet in old German costume." Most likely Beethoven accepted the commission knowing full well that he would be ghostwriting the music for his benefactor. In any event, it soon became known that Beethoven, the young court musician and Count Waldstein's protégé, had written the score.

A transcription for piano of Beethoven's Musik zu einem Ritterballet was printed in Leipzig in 1872, but the original score did not become available until 1888. That year it was published as part of the complete edition of Beethoven's works released by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig.

Waldstein's ballet depicts the medieval German enthusiams of war, hunting, love and drinking in eight brief pantomimes: 1) Marsch; 2) Deutscher Gesang; 3) Jagdlied; 4) Minnelied; 5) Kriegslied; 6) Trinklied; 7) Deutscher Tanz; and 8) Coda. Beethoven's bucolic music is all that remains of Count Waldstein's production. Unlike the two Bonn cantatas, there is little in the Musik zu einem Ritterballet to suggest Beethoven's future accomplishments, although there are moments in which we sense his grasp of the classical style of Haydn and Mozart.

Some of Beethoven's later characteristics emerge in the opening March. In typical ABA form, the first section features a varied, not literal, repetition of its melody while in the return of section A Beethoven moves briefly to the minor mode. The ensuing "German Song" is rondo-like: part of its rising/falling, eight-measure string theme alternates with contrasting melodies and closes the segment. A predictable leaping horn tune opens the third movement, "Hunting Song," the second section of which features strings alternating with woodwinds and brass. A return of the main theme from the "German Song" ushers in the fourth movement, "Love Song," which is played on pizzicato strings at a piano dynamic and is melodically similar to the "German Song." From this point on, a reprise of the "German Song" appears between each of the numbers. Handelian in style, the fifth section, "Battle Song," is an aggressive outburst for brass and timpani. The ensuing "Drinking Song" is a boisterous number featuring simple, four-measure tunes that are all repeated.

At the time Beethoven lived in Bonn, the term, "German Dance" generally meant a simple, triple-meter dance for couples. The pieces are very much like Ländler or other country dances and have none of the lilt we associate with the nineteenth-century waltzes of the Strauss family. Beethoven's German Dance movement of the Ritterballet reflects its country origins in the moderate tempo and in an opening melody that clearly articulates the triple meter before giving way to a more fluid, scalar, eighth-note rhythm. Without any warning the duple-meter coda bursts in, but halts after a moment for the final reprise of the "German Song" before closing the ballet.

Source: Allmusic.

Günther Herbig & Staatskapelle Berlin, 1971.