Between August and November 1818, Beethoven completed eight folksong settings for George Thomson. These constitute Group XIV in Barry Cooper’s chronological catalog.
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Setting of “Lochnagar” CFS XIV/1 (WoO 156, No. 9), 1818
A trio sings of youthful hiking through the mountains and valleys of Lochnagar. No way the “tame and domestic” beauties of England compare! Text by Lord Byron.
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Setting of “Womankind” CFS XIV/3 (WoO 156, No. 8), 1818
Men can win glory and praise in battles and war, but woman “toils and expires” with nothing but a smile in thanks. “O woman, that virtue is thine!”
One of Beethoven’s folksong settings in Group XIV is “Auld Lang Syne,” based on the well-known traditional Scottish folk tune with reworked lyrics by Robert Burns. Despite the familiarity, Beethoven’s setting gives a fresh and unusual spin on the song.
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Setting of “Auld Lang Syne” CFS XIV/4 (WoO 156, No. 11), 1818
Is anything more bittersweet than a chorus joining virtually to sing this well-known song? This is the choir of the Technical University of Munich.
You might hear what sounds like a wrong note in Beethoven’s setting of the vocal part of “Auld Lang Syne.” In his book on Beethoven’s Folksong Settings (p. 105), Barry Cooper cites a mistake that Beethoven made, or perhaps what he believed to be an improvement. In the chorus “For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne,” for the second “auld” in the soprano part, Beethoven has a B♭ sixteenth note followed by a dotted eighth note A. In the traditional melody, that should be a C followed by an A.
George Thomson corrected the B♭ to a C (and the other parts accordingly) when he published the song in London, but the publication by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1865 restored Beethoven’s B♭, and that’s what the chorus sings.
It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
#Beethoven250 Day 312
Setting of “Auld Lang Syne” CFS XIV/4 (WoO 156, No. 11), 1818
The chamber singers of the University of Virginia had hoped to perform Beethoven together during 2020. Their college song is also sung to the same tune.