Ex. 14-3: Bußlied

No. 6, the last of Beethoven's Sechs Lieder von Gellert (Six Songs by Gellert), Op. 48, published in 1803. The poems are by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715–1769), from his Geistliche Oden und Lieder (Sacred Odes and Songs). Beethoven dedicated the set to Count Johann Georg von Browne, one of his patrons.

"Bußlied" means "Song of Repentance" — a song asking God to forgive one's sins. The words come from Psalm 51, a well-known prayer in the Bible in which a person admits their sins and asks God for mercy. The song opens: "Against you alone have I sinned."

Of the six Gellert songs, the first five mostly repeat the same melody for each verse. "Bußlied" is different: the music keeps changing from start to end, and it is by far the longest song of the six. It moves from minor at the start, the confession of sin, to major at the end, where the sinner trusts in God's mercy.

He wrote these songs around 1801–1802, as his deafness was growing worse — the same years as his Eroica Variations, also in this app. (Ex. 12-2: Variation 14 (edited) by Ludwig van Beethoven)

C. P. E. Bach, a son of Johann Sebastian Bach, had set the same Gellert poems years earlier, in 1758. Bach's settings were very popular, and they influenced Beethoven's own. Later, Franz Liszt arranged all six Gellert songs for solo piano (1840).

From the album Beethoven: Lieder, Vol. 1 by Peter Schreier and Walter Olbertz (2009)
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