by Christopher Fulkerson
These arrangements were begun in 2009 as a result of my growing interest in the song form and in vernacular music, and my desire to work with the guitar in mixed ensembles. The marvelous boxed CD sets make it possible nowadays to listen to huge repertoires of music; while going through the complete works of Beethoven, I had discovered for myself the huge number of arrangments he had made for a British publisher during the Napoleonic years. There are well over 200 such songs, almost all in English. For some while they seem to have provided him with his bread and butter. I find them much more interesting than just about any other vocal music of Beethoven's than I had previously known, and they anticipate the Romantic era, especially the dramatic music of the Nineteenth Century, better than is generally known, or surely they would be better known. They deserve to be.
They are not all actually folksongs; some are original compositions. For example, "The Return to Ulster," to a poem by Sir Walter Scott, is certainly one of the very finest compositions for voice, and comes from the same expressive domain as the first of the Opus 59 String Quartets. Most of the time, these "folksongs" are more, not less complicated than the lieder of his or most any other tonal day. It is astonishing to hear this level of expression and invention in English from this time in music history! I think his folksongs open Beethoven up to the English speaking world like no other of his music.
Beethoven used the piano trio to accompany his Folksongs, so they explore quite wider possibilities than the standard fare of voice and piano. I have recast some of these songs into the grouping of Flute (doubling piccolo), Oboe, Violin, Cello, and Guitar; while many of them cannot be altered without changing them beyond recognition, this ensemble seems to add to, rather than detract from, certain of Beethoven's original songs. To date the following arrangments exist:
1. The Return to Ulster
2. Faithfu' Johnie
3. Oh How Can I Be Blythe and Glad
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First posted 1/11/2010. Updated 1/18/2010.