Towards a German Romantic Concept of the Ballad: Goethe’s “Johanna Sebus” and Its Musical Interpretations by Zelter and Reichardt

Abstract

Towards a German Romantic Concept of the Ballad: Goethe’s “Johanna Sebus” and Its Musical Interpretations by Zelter and Reichardt Francien Markx In the midst of the political turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, the force of nature took its toll on the French-occupied lower Rhine region. On January 13, 1809, the dam near Cleve (lying today in Germany near the Dutch border) collapsed, and the icy waters of the Rhine devastated the village of Brienen and flooded several other villages nearby. A seventeen-year-old village girl, Johanna Sebus, saved her mother’s life but died herself trying to rescue her neighbors. Three months later, her body was found, and she was buried with honor near the old Gothic church in Rindern.1 Her selfless deed was not forgotten, which was especially due to the efforts of the magistrate of the Cleve district, Baron Charles de Keverberg, who brought the events to the attention of the French authorities. In 1811, a monument was erected to Johanna’s memory. Designed by Dominique Vivant-Denon, whom Napoleon had appointed as first director of the Louvre Museum (at that time known as the Musée Napoléon), it is over three meters high, featuring a French text, and a marble medallion depicting a rose floating on the waves.2 Johanna’s death continues to be commemorated, most recently with an exhibition in Cleve on the 200th anniversary of her demise.3 Her courageous act has also inspired many painters, sculptors, and authors.4 The most famous and influential contribution was penned by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who honored Johanna with a ballad in May 1809. Goethe learned about Johanna’s tragic death from his acquaintance Christiane von Vernejoul, who sent him the report of the events written by Baron Keverberg and requested in an accompanying letter: “Mögten Sie die rührende That werth finden von dem ersten Dichter der lebenden Welt, in einer Ballade verewigt zu werden—so wäre dießem edlen Mädchen ein Denckmal errichtet, welches in jedes fühlenden Menschen Brust Bewunderung für die Heldin, und heißen Danck für den Großmüthigen Dichter erwecken würde.”5 Goethe honored the request6 and sent his ballad to Keverberg in Cleve, where it was read at a memorial service for Johanna.7 Among the composers who were inspired by the ballad were Goethe’s contemporaries Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758–1832) and Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752–1814).8 Both were well acquainted with Goethe, and at [End Page 1] some point in their lives his most important musical advisor. Reichardt, Kapellmeister to three Prussian kings, was a renowned music critic and song composer, and had worked closely together with Goethe during the late 1780s and early 1790s on the Singspiele Claudine von Villa Bella and Erwin und Elmire.9 Goethe, however, abruptly ended the collaboration after Reichardt’s sympathies with the French revolution and its democratic cause had become public and his subsequent dismissal as Prussian Hofkapellmeister in 1794. Around this time, the master mason Zelter turned to composing Lieder, and his songs soon came to Goethe’s attention. A close friendship developed, resulting in an extensive correspondence that lasted over thirty years. Zelter was an important figure in Berlin’s musical and cultural life; he took over the direction of the Berlin Singakademie in 1800, was appointed Professor of Music at the Royal Prussian Akademie der Künste in 1809 and responsible for the founding of several musical institutions in Berlin. Together with Johann Abraham Peter Schulz (1747–1800), Zelter and Reichardt were the main representatives of the zweite Berliner Liederschule (ca. 1770–1814). In their Lieder, this second generation of song composers in Berlin tried to find an adequate musical idiom for the new subjective expression of the literature of Empfindsamkeit and Sturm und Drang. The natural, artless quality of the Volkslied, with its regular strophic structure and simple and singable melody, was the ideal for this new form of art song, which nurtured the awakening feelings of German self-awareness and cultural identity.10 For both Reichardt and Zelter, texts by Goethe formed an important inspiration in their search for a new...