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33-480: Egmont , Op. 84 by Ludwig van Beethoven , is a set of incidental music pieces for the 1787 play of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . It consists of an overture followed by a sequence of nine pieces for soprano , male narrator , and full symphony orchestra . The male narrator is optional; he is not used in the play and does not appear in some recordings of the complete incidental music . Beethoven wrote it between October 1809 and June 1810, and it

66-510: A music catalogue , the opus number is paired with a cardinal number ; for example, Beethoven 's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor (1801, nicknamed Moonlight Sonata ) is "Opus 27, No. 2", whose work-number identifies it as a companion piece to "Opus 27, No. 1" ( Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major , 1800–01), paired in same opus number, with both being subtitled Sonata quasi una Fantasia ,

99-581: A composer's works, as in the sets of string quartets by Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827); Haydn's Op. 76, the Erdödy quartets (1796–97), comprises six discrete quartets consecutively numbered Op. 76 No. 1 – Op. 76 No. 6; whilst Beethoven's Op. 59, the Rasumovsky quartets (1805–06), comprises String Quartet No. 7, String Quartet No. 8, and String Quartet No. 9. From about 1800, composers usually assigned an opus number to

132-453: A composition, Prokofiev occasionally assigned a new opus number to the revision; thus Symphony No. 4 is two thematically related but discrete works: Symphony No. 4, Op. 47, written in 1929; and Symphony No. 4, Op. 112, a large-scale revision written in 1947. Likewise, depending upon the edition, the original version of Piano Sonata No. 5 in C major, is cataloged both as Op. 38 and as Op. 135. Despite being used in more or less normal fashion by

165-410: A fast medial section in the submediant , C major. The second movement is a scherzo and is in ternary form (the norm for scherzi). Beethoven specifically notates the first phrase to start in the second bar. The main theme consists of mostly quarter notes in parallel octaves. Inside the theme, the first 16 bars are repeated outside an 8-bar middle strain. When it returns following the trio section,

198-443: A final cadenza (on the dominant seventh ) that leads directly to the finale. The movement is brief and thus might be heard by some listeners as an introduction to the final movement rather than as an independent movement, as Jonathan Del Mar suggests. The finale is the most extended movement of the work. Charles Rosen notes, "With this movement, Beethoven began an experiment, to which he continued to return and develop through

231-563: A number of important early-twentieth-century composers, including Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) and Anton Webern (1883–1945), opus numbers became less common in the later part of the twentieth century. To manage inconsistent opus-number usages — especially by composers of the Baroque (1600–1750) and of the Classical (1720—1830) music eras — musicologists have developed comprehensive and unambiguous catalogue number-systems for

264-467: A specific musical composition, and by German composers for collections of music. In compositional practice, numbering musical works in chronological order dates from 17th-century Italy, especially Venice . In common usage, the word opus is used to describe the best work of an artist with the term magnum opus . In Latin, the words opus (singular) and opera (plural) are related to the words opera (singular) and operae (plural), which gave rise to

297-546: A work of musical composition , a practice and usage established in the seventeenth century when composers identified their works with an opus number. In the eighteenth century, publishers usually assigned opus numbers when publishing groups of like compositions, usually in sets of three, six or twelve compositions. Consequently, opus numbers are not usually in chronological order, unpublished compositions usually had no opus number, and numeration gaps and sequential duplications occurred when publishers issued contemporaneous editions of

330-641: A work or set of works upon publication. After approximately 1900, they tended to assign an opus number to a composition whether published or not. However, practices were not always perfectly consistent or logical. For example, early in his career, Beethoven selectively numbered his compositions (some published without opus numbers), yet in later years, he published early works with high opus numbers. Likewise, some posthumously published works were given high opus numbers by publishers, even though some of them were written early in Beethoven's career. Since his death in 1827,

363-416: Is also a cyclic return of earlier material later in the sonata, which thus aims to integrate its movements into a unified cycle. The Op. 27 No. 1 sonata is laid out in four movements: However, the work is meant to be performed from beginning to end. The first movement is in five-part rondo form (also called a square tune ) instead of sonata form , unusual for Beethoven. The tempo is slow, interrupted by

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396-466: Is in a style similar to the Fifth Symphony , which he had completed two years earlier. The incidental music comprises the following sections, among which the overture, the lieder Die Trommel gerühret , Freudvoll und leidvoll and Klärchens Tod are particularly well-known: The Hungarian film Overture by János Vadász, which won the 1965 Cannes Film Festival's Short Film Palme d'Or , uses

429-620: The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV-number) and the Köchel-Verzeichnis (K- and KV-numbers), which enumerate the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , respectively. In the classical period , the Latin word opus ("work", "labour"), plural opera , was used to identify, list, and catalogue a work of art. By the 15th and 16th centuries, the word opus was used by Italian composers to denote

462-417: The " attacca " principle [i.e. performance of all movements without pause] is the blurring of the concept of each movement as an autonomous whole ... Instead, the "attacca" connections force attention on to the totality of the entire composition, with its transitions from movement to movement, and thus from one sharply defined affect to another. ... This is even more true when, as in [the present sonata], there

495-582: The Italian words opera (singular) and opere (plural), likewise meaning "work". In contemporary English, the word opera has specifically come to denote the dramatic musical genres of opera or ballet, which were developed in Italy. As a result, the plural opera of opus tends to be avoided in English. In other languages such as German, however, it remains common. In the arts, an opus number usually denotes

528-989: The Mendelssohn heirs published (and cataloged) them as the Italian Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 , and as the Reformation Symphony No. 5 in D major and D minor, Op. 107 . While many of the works of Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) were given opus numbers, these did not always bear a logical relationship to the order in which the works were written or published. To achieve better sales, some publishers, such as N. Simrock , preferred to present less experienced composers as being well established, by giving some relatively early works much higher opus numbers than their chronological order would merit. In other cases, Dvořák gave lower opus numbers to new works to be able to sell them to other publishers outside his contract obligations. This way it could happen that

561-536: The case of Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47); after his death, the heirs published many compositions with opus numbers that Mendelssohn did not assign. In life, he published two symphonies ( Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 11 ; and Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 ), furthermore he published his symphony-cantata Lobgesang , Op. 52, which was posthumously counted as his Symphony No. 2; yet, he chronologically wrote symphonies between symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, which he withdrew for personal and compositional reasons; nevertheless,

594-425: The case of the present work (though not its companion), the entire sonata is played continuously without pauses between movements, in the manner of most fantasias. The movements are not in the usual order for a sonata: the opening movement is a slow movement and the scherzo and slow movement are in inverted order. The first movement is not in sonata form, as is true for most sonatas. As Kenneth Drake has pointed out,

627-466: The cases of César Franck (1822–1890), Béla Bartók (1881–1945), and Alban Berg (1885–1935), who initially numbered, but then stopped numbering their compositions. Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) and Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) were also inconsistent in their approaches. Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) was consistent and assigned an opus number to a composition before composing it; at his death, he left fragmentary and planned, but numbered, works. In revising

660-517: The complete Egmont Overture as the soundtrack for a series of images featuring a hatching bird and was described as "among the most ingenious pairings of music and image in the history of the festival." Opus number In music , the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition , or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer 's publication of that work. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among compositions with similar titles;

693-673: The dedication of the Eroica Symphony . In the music for Egmont , Beethoven expressed his own political concerns through the exaltation of the heroic sacrifice of a man condemned to death for having taken a valiant stand against oppression. The Overture became an unofficial anthem of the 1956 Hungarian revolution . Beethoven composed Klärchen's songs " Die Trommel gerühret " ("The drum is a-stirring") and " Freudvoll und leidvoll " ("Joyful and woeful") with Austrian actress Antonie Adamberger specifically in mind, and she often spoke enthusiastically of her collaboration with him. The music

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726-415: The first four symphonies to be composed were published after the last five; and (c) the last five symphonies were not published in order of composition. The New World Symphony originally was published as No. 5, later was known as No. 8, and definitively was renumbered as No. 9 in the critical editions published in the 1950s. Other examples of composers' historically inconsistent opus-number usages include

759-453: The first, second, and final movements survive, but the original autograph copy is lost. The sonata was published separately from its more famous companion, Op. 27 No. 2 (the "Moonlight" Sonata), but at the same time, by Cappi in Vienna; the first advertisements for the work appeared 3 March 1802. Both Op. 27 sonatas were originally titled Sonata quasi una fantasia . The dedicatee of

792-438: The left hand plays staccato and the notes of the right hand part (still legato ) are offset half a beat later. The movement includes a brief coda and concludes on the chord C major, a Picardy third . The third movement is slow in tempo and features a lyrical, noble theme, set against an eighth note accompaniment (in the recapitulation , sixteenth notes). The movement does not conclude in its tonic key, but instead reaches

825-510: The movements are in extreme contrast with each other, a common trait of the sections of a fantasia. Lastly, the appearance of a quotation from one movement within another (here, from the third movement within the fourth) is a form of freedom not ordinarily employed in classical sonatas. Several of these patterns are mentioned in Lewis Lockwood 's discussion of the aesthetics of Beethoven's " quasi una fantasia " works: The result of

858-529: The only two of the kind in all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. Furthermore, the Piano Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2, in C-sharp minor is also catalogued as "Sonata No. 14", because it is the fourteenth sonata composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. Given composers' inconsistent or non-existent assignment of opus numbers, especially during the Baroque (1600–1750) and the Classical (1750–1827) eras, musicologists have developed other catalogue-number systems; among them

891-475: The same opus number was given to more than one of his works. Opus number 12, for example, was assigned, successively, to five different works (an opera, a concert overture, a string quartet, and two unrelated piano works). In other cases, the same work was given as many as three different opus numbers by different publishers. The sequential numbering of his symphonies has also been confused: (a) they were initially numbered by order of publication, not composition; (b)

924-452: The un-numbered compositions have been cataloged and labeled with the German acronym WoO ( Werk ohne Opuszahl ), meaning "work without opus number"; the same has been done with other composers who used opus numbers. (There are also other catalogs of Beethoven's works – see Catalogues of Beethoven compositions .) The practice of enumerating a posthumous opus ("Op. posth.") is noteworthy in

957-405: The word is abbreviated as "Op." for a single work, or "Opp." when referring to more than one work. Opus numbers do not necessarily indicate chronological order of composition. For example, posthumous publications of a composer's juvenilia are often numbered after other works, even though they may be some of the composer's first completed works. To indicate the specific place of a given work within

990-413: The work was (as was typical of the time) an aristocrat, Princess Josephine von Liechtenstein . Little is known of Beethoven's relationship with her. Grove Music Online translates the Italian title Sonata quasi una fantasia as "sonata in the manner of a fantasy ". While we cannot know precisely why Beethoven used this description for the two Op. 27 sonatas, several explanations are available. In

1023-471: The works of composers such as: Piano Sonata No. 13 (Beethoven) Beethoven was about 30 years old when he wrote the sonata. He had already made a name for himself in Vienna as pianist and composer and was beginning to explore alternatives to the classical-era compositional procedures that he had largely adhered to during the 18th century. The most famous works of his "middle period", often emphasizing heroism, were yet to come. Beethoven's sketches for

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1056-468: Was praised by E.T.A. Hoffmann for its poetry, et sa réussite à s'associer à la pièce (and its success in associating with the play) and Goethe himself declared that Beethoven had expressed his intentions with "a remarkable genius." The overture is powerful and expressive, one of the last works of Beethoven's middle period. It has become as famous a composition as the Coriolan Overture and

1089-670: Was premiered on 15 June 1810. The subject of the music and dramatic narrative is the life and heroism of 16th-century nobleman Lamoral, Count of Egmont from the Low Countries . It was composed during the Napoleonic Wars when the First French Empire had extended its domination over vast swathes of Europe. Beethoven had famously expressed his great outrage over Napoleon Bonaparte's decision to crown himself Emperor in 1804, furiously scratching out his name in

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