"Jery und Bätely" (Goethe) set to music by various composers

[Wheesht]

The one-act Singspiel, written by Goethe after his second Swiss journey in 1779, is set in the Swiss canton of Uri. It has been set to music by a good number of composers, and the recent thread on the forthcoming recording of Ingeborg von Bronsart's opera has inspired me to compile a, necessarily incomplete, list of other composers who have set this story to music. I have left out those that are too early or too late for our remit. The background information for the Naxos release says that

between 1780, when Goethe created the libretto, and 1909 no fewer than 27 composers created music for this charming bucolic farce.

1.   Konradin Kreutzer 1810
2.   Michael Frey (1787-1832) Mannheim 1815
3.   Jos. v. Lannoy (1787-1853) 1816
4.   Adolf  Bernhard Marx (1795-1866) Berlin 1825
5.   Justus Amadeus Lecerf  (1789-1868) 1825
6.   Adolphe Adam (1803-1856) Le Chalet 1834
7.   Gaetano Donizetti "Betly, ossia La Capanna Svizzera" (Betly, or the Swiss Chalet) 1836, based on the libretto for Adam's Le Chalet
8.   Julius Rietz (1812-1877) 1841 (or 1839?)
9.   Woldemar Bargiel (1828-1897) 1851 unpubl.
10.   Adolf Reichel (1816-1896) (no date. available at rism-ch.org)
11.   Heinrich Stiehl (1829-1886) 1867 (publ. 1868) (manuscript at Württembergische Landesbibliothek)
12.   Ingeborg von Bronsart (1840-1913) Hannover 1873
13.   Georg Hartmann (?) 1902
14.   Erwin Dressel (1909-1972) 1932 (composed in a post-romantic vein according to his German Wikipedia entry)

[adriano]

Thanks Wheesht for this info! I was only aware of Donizetti's and Adam's versions.
(By the way: although my mother tongue is Italian, I lived in the city of Altdorf, in the Canton of Uri, from 1944 to 1955)

"Bäteli" is, of course a diminutive of Elisabeth ("Betty" in English). Donizetti comes nearer to the German pronounciation with "Betly".
A song and a duet from "Jery und Bätely" (with piano accompaniment) were recorded on a Gemini Hall Records LP in 1975  ("Woman's Work - Works by famous Women Composers").

About Ingeborg von Bronsart: The score of her effective "Kaiser Wilhelm-Marsch" was published by Bote & Bock.
Quite a sensation: The work was premiered at the Chicago World Fair of 1893, to open its special "Women's Program" - a thing that in Germany's macho Empire of that time would have never been possible.

https://books.google.ch/books?id=g6tgAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ViewAPI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Her "Walse-Caprice" was recorded by pianist Rosario Marciano on a "Women Composer" LP in 1979 (Vox-Turnabout).

A pity that her Piano Concerto has gone lost...

Another "Altdorf Opera", besides Rossini's "Guillaume Tell", is Grétry's opera of the same title. It has been recorded by Claudio Scimone in 2013 and is also available on DVD. Quite an amusing production :-)

https://www.qobuz.com/ch-de/album/gretry-guillaume-tell-opera-royal-de-wallonie-claudio-scimone/5425008313702
https://www.amazon.de/Gretry-Guillaume-Tell-Claudio-Scimone/dp/B00KJ3OY8M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tell_(opera)
(I am almost sure that some obscure composers used this subject for operas as well)

[eschiss1]

Hartmann was the dedicatee of Waghalter's string quartet op.3, perhaps? See Wikipedia (German).

[Wheesht]

@hadrianus: Thank you. Very interesting. I wasn't aware of Grétry's opera (nor of the Ingeborg von Bronsart recordings or the premiere of her "Kaier-Wilhelm-Marsch").

@eschiss1: Thank you. That does look like a possibility. All I have re "Jery und Bätely" is the name Georg Hartmann and the year – 1902.

I read somewhere that both Brahms and Bruch composed individual songs based on Goethe's libretto.

[adriano]

for example:

Brahms's "Es rauschet das Wasser", op.28 (from 4 Duets).

Max Bruch: "Ein Mädchen und ein Gläschchen Wein" (op. 27)

If I am not wrong, also Raff composed a song: "Es rauschet das Wasser" (not enough time to research on this now)...

There are also settings from "Bätely" by Charles John Hargitt and Reinhold Becker...

There is a long essay on "Gery und Bähteli" in the Supplement volume 1 of the "Goethe Handbuch" (J. B. Metzler-Verlag, pages 250-268). One of these days I am going to scan all theses pages at the Central Library.

[eschiss1]

it could instead be a work by French composer/publisher Georges Hartmann- he died 1900 but 1902 may refer as often with opera to premiere not composition date (and even then- completions by others were not that rare.)

[Wheesht]

That sounds like a possibility, thanks.

[adriano]

Geog Hartmann's Singspiel "Jery und Bätely" was premièred at the Stadttheater Königsberg in November 1902. A score was prepared for this occasion and published in Leipzig in 1905. So far I could not find more infos on Hartmann.

Here is a more complete list of all the composers who set Goethe's piece to music (scroll down to page 242):

https://books.google.ch/books?id=H-xEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA242&lpg=PA242&dq=georg+hartmann+jery+und+b%C3%A4tely&source=bl&ots=YpsvPGFVJW&sig=ACfU3U2xoWT4Oc-IPE_lK20iqoglLuetiQ&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjh4aetx4TrAhVn-SoKHdq1AV04ChDoATABegQIChAB#v=onepage&q=georg%20hartmann%20jery%20und%20b%C3%A4tely&f=false

[Wheesht]

Thank you, very interesting! The list is getting longer...

[adriano]

Meanwhile I scanned the complete chapter in the abovementioned Beethoven-Handbuch - If anyone is intrerested, I can put in on to Mediafire.