The second of Beethoven’s “Three Songs of Goethe” is “Sehnsucht” (“Longing”) but it’s unrelated to the “Sehnsucht” song of a couple years earlier (Day 210) with a text from “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.” This is a completely different Goethe poem.
In the five stanzas of Goethe’s “Sehnsucht,” the poet’s longing draws him outdoors to take flight among the birds. From s soaring vantage point, he searches for his sweetheart, sings to her, turns into a star, and then surprise! He’s lying at her feet: “Then I am truly happy.”
In keeping with the more whimsical and carefree take on longing in Goethe’s “Sehnsucht,” Beethoven’s music is in jolly 6/8 time, and the piano interludes are not above imitating the swooping flights of birds and their twittering song.
#Beethoven250 Day 245
“Sehnsucht” (Opus 83, No. 2), 1810
Another live Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau performance with English subtitles! We are truly blessed to live in a world where such things are possible.