A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt

by George Grove

MEERESSTILLE UND GLÜCKLICHE FAHRT, i.e. Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, a poem by Goethe, which has been set to music by two great masters.

1. By Beethoven, for chorus and orchestra. Composed in 1815, first performed at the Great Redoutensaal in Vienna on Christmas day of that year, and published Feb. 28, 1823, by Steiner. It is dedicated 'to the immortal Goethe.' The reverse of the title-page contains 3 lines from Voss's translation of the Odyssey (viii. 479), thus rendered by Lang and Butcher:—

'For from all men on earth minstrels get their meed of honour and worship; inasmuch as the muse teacheth them the paths ot song, and loveth the tribe of minstrels.'

A letter from Beethoven to the publisher, dated June 12, and apparently belonging to the year 1824, calls it a cantata, and asks for the loan of the score, that he 'might write a kind of overture to it.' This intention does not appear to have been carried out.

2. By Mendelssohn, for orchestra only. Written in the summer of 1828, first performed at Berlin Dec. 1, 1832, remodelled and 'made thirty times as good as before,' and published as op. 27 and No. 3 of his Concert Overtures in 1834. We learn from a passage in his sister's diary^[1] that Mendelssohn wished to avoid the form of an introduction and overture, and to throw his work into two companion pictures.

[ G. ]

1. Hensel's 'Die Familie Mendelssohn.' i. 191.