Beethoven and melodrama

Abstract

The recent interest in stage melodrama from the late eighteenth century (1775−c. 1790) has prompted some questions about the technique of melodrama within opera and incidental music, yet the contribution of Ludwig van Beethoven, who set the standard of melodrama's application in German Romantic opera and incidental music, has not been studied in detail. This paper investigates Beethoven's melodrama application and composition in terms of its placement within the overall dramaturgic and musical structure of the particular work; types of melodrama insertions, and music-text interdependence. Besides the commonly understood influence on Beethoven by the French opéra comique of Cherubini and Méhul, there are German practices of melodrama writing associated with stage melodrama, one of the chief composers of which was Beethoven's teacher Neefe. It demonstrates that Beethoven had a profound technical and dramaturgical competence of the different procedures associated with melodrama and a particular familiarity with the German style. His own contribution to melodrama composition represents a blend of French and German practices. Beethoven's use of melodrama not only influenced his contemporaries, but influenced the generation of German composers that was to follow.