Happy Present Meet
Mendelssohn The First Walpurgis Night Op.60 for Full Score
Ballade by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Language(s) of work: German, English
Language(s) of text: German, English
Product format: Score, Urtext version
Includes the following individual parts: Soli, Mixed choir, Orchestra
1. Preface
2. Vorwort
3. Die erste Walpurgisnacht / The First Walpurgis Night:
4. Dramatis Personae, Text, and Translation 5. Ouverture: I. Das schlechte Wetter / Bad weather
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
6. Ouverture: II. Der Ubergang zum Fruhling / The translation to springtime
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
7. Nr. 1: Es lacht der Mai / Now May again
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
8. Nr. 2: Konnt ihr so verwegen handeln / Know ye not a deed so daring
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
9. Nr. 3: Wer Opfer heut zu bringen scheut / The man who flies our sacrifice
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
10. Nr. 4: Verteilt euch, wackre Manner hier! / Disperse, disperse ye gallant men!
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
11. Nr. 5: Diese dumpfen Pfaffenchristen / Should our Christian foes assail us
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
12. Nr. 6: Kommt mit Zacken und mit Gabeln / Come with flappers, fire, and clappers
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
13. Nr. 7: So weit gebracht, dass wir bei Nacht / Restrain`d by might, we now by night
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
14. Nr. 8: Hilf, ach hilf mir, Kriegsgeselle / Help, my comrades, see a legion
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
15. Nr. 9: Die Flamme reinigt sich vom Rauch / Unclouded now, the flame is bright
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
16. Critical Report
During the summer of 1799, Goethe wrote his ballad “Die erste Walpurgisnacht” and asked his friend Carl Friedrich Zelter to set the work to music. Zelter however, felt unable to do this, and so Goethe’s wish was only realised thirty years later by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The “heavenly words” of the pagan ballads had impressed the composer so much after a visit to Weimar, that he was inspired to set them to music. In 1832 the composition took shape and was performed a year later in the Sing-Akademie in Berlin.
Mendelssohn was, however, unhappy with the first version of the work and held it back, until he decided on a radical revision of the work ten years after its premiere.
“Die erste Walpurgisnacht” was first performed in 1843 in Leipzig, in the presence of Robert Schumann and Hector Berlioz, in the form in which the work is still performed today.
The publication of this edition by John Michael Cooper makes the work available in an Urtext edition for the first time. The edition reflects the latest state of research, and the volume includes a Critical Commentary.
작곡가 Mendelssohn, Felix (1809-1847)
에디터 Cooper, John Michael
