Meyerbeer, Giacomo

Giacomo Meyerbeer – Three Klopstock Lieder (Nos. 1, 2 and 7)

(b. Berlin, 5 September 1791 – d. Paris, 2 May 1864)

Lost and Forgotten Vocal Pieces for One or More Voices

Volume 6

Morning Song (Morgenlied) p.1
To the Trinity (Dem Dreieinigen) p.13
Dearest Jesus We Are Here (Liebster Jesu wir sind hier) p.20

Preface
Giacomo Meyerbeer, the master of French Grand Opéra, is less well-known as a composer of songs. And yet Meyerbeer the songwriter is becoming better known as the extent of his oeuvre of over 80 Lieder, melodies and canzone is slowly rediscovered.

As in all his works, genre plays a crucial role, and Meyerbeer was gifted with an extraordinary capacity to live in the natural musical expressions of the various German, Italian and French milieux he lived in throughout his life, and to whose essential characteristics he responded with effortless intuitiveness. His unique cosmopolitanism, so characteristic of the 18th and early 19th centuries, was first hailed as an important binding force between nations. Later such trans-national characteristics were treated with scorn, even contempt, as extreme nationalism and wars beset the various countries of Europe.

Meyerbeer was a deeply religious man. Although he never relinquished the reform Judaism he inherited from his parents he was deeply respectful of all religions, participating in and composing music for Synagogue and Catholic and Protestant church services alike.

He was particularly inspired by a set of seven religious odes by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803), which he first set to music in 1812 and subsequently revised for publication in 1841. His settings for mixed choir capture the essence of the poet’s vision, the rhetorical and rhapsodic nature of his spiritual fervor.

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