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The song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte ('To the Distant Beloved'), composed in the spring of 1816, stands on the threshold of Beethoven's last period. It is the earliest work of its kind, and its circular design, with the music of the first song returning at the end, is almost unique in his output. (The idea is anticipated in the comparatively lightweight Serenade Op.8 for string trio, where the opening march is used again to round the work off; and in the C major Mass of 1807, in which the final 'Agnus Dei' ultimately resolves into the theme of the opening 'Kyrie'.) The recall of the opening song in the closing bars of An die ferne Geliebte is no gratuitous gesture: the entire cycle is concerned with a desire to dissolve space and time, so that the singer's longed-for reunion with his lost beloved may still be attainable. Only if she answers him by singing the same melody herself will the distance that separates them evaporate.

It was a 20-year-old medical student from Prague, Alois Jeitteles, who sent Beethoven the poems of An die ferne Geliebte . Clearly, their subject-matter clearly struck a chord in the composer, and their narrative continuity provided him with the opportunity to create a seamless chain of vocal settings, though one whose individual songs are nevertheless strongly differentiated.

None of Beethoven's works had a stronger influence on later 19th-century composers than An die ferne Geliebte . Mendelssohn's youthful String Quartet Op.13 has a similar circular structure, with the song quotation of its slow introduction making a more elaborate return at the end of the finale; and Schumann's own song-cycle Frauenliebe und -leben comes full-circle in a manner similar to Beethoven's, though to very different effect. Schumann, for whom the title of Beethoven's work clearly had deep symbolic significance during the long years of his enforced separation from his future bride, Clara Wieck, quoted the opening phrase of its final song in the first movement of his great C major Fantasy for piano Op.17. Only one further collection of Beethoven's songs was designed from the outset as a unified group: the Six Songs Op.48 to devotional poems by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. The first five of them are impressively austere, but the last is more expansive, and becomes increasingly intense before ultimately reaching a subdued conclusion.

Of Beethoven's earlier songs, the most elaborate is Adelaide - a setting of a sentimental poem by Friedrich von Matthisson. (Beethoven set two further poems by Matthisson: Opferlied , of which he made several versions, including one for soprano solo, chorus and orchestra; and Andenken .) But the poet who brought out the best in the composer was Goethe. The sense of yearning expressed in his version of Mignon's famous Kennst du das Land wasn't surpassed until Hugo Wolf's setting, some 80 years later; and no less remarkable are the urgency and breathlessness of Neue liebe, neues Leben , published in the same set, Op.75.

Beethoven's progress in the still young art of the Lied is well illustrated by his two settings of An die Hoffnung , from the epic poem Urania by Christoph August Tiedge. Beethoven's first version (Op.32), of 1804-5, is a simple strophic setting - i.e. with the same music used for each verse; while the second (Op.94), composed a decade later, is much more elaborate and dramatic, and is prefaced by a mysterious recitative reflecting the philosophical content of Tiedge's poem. Ultimately, however, Beethoven's comparatively slender contribution to the repertoire of the song was overshadowed by the much richer legacy of his younger contemporary Schubert.

©Misha Donat