Three equals for four trombones
Beethoven every Friday: to mark his 250th birthday, we take a look at one of his works every week. Today on the three Equale for four trombones.
What would music history be without the creative moment? Or simply without the practical performance opportunity? So it was more of a coincidence that led to the creation of the Equal WoO 30 for four trombones, which today already seem somewhat strange in terms of the instrumentation. We owe these brief movements to a stay Beethoven made in Linz in 1812, during which he became friends with the then cathedral conductor Franz Xaver Glöggl (1764-1839). The latter is said to have asked him to write it, "to compose so-called Equale for 4 trombones for All Souls' Day (November 2) in order to have them blown by his musicians in the traditional manner on this festival". At least this is what Ignaz von Seyfried recalled. As Beethoven did not know the arrangement of these pieces, which had only been handed down locally, he asked for them, "to hear an aequal, as it was blown at the corpses in Linz". And the then 16-year-old son of the cathedral conductor, Franz Glöggl, continues in his much later record: "So it happened that one afternoon my father ordered three trombonists, as Beethoven was dining with us anyway, and had one of them play the aequalizer."
The three trombonists were presumably supported by Father Glöggl himself, and pieces were played that probably belonged to those days. 1200 Instrumental batteries which the cathedral chapel master could fall back on when blowing from the tower. However, the whereabouts of this collection are completely unknown. The strange work designation "Equal" also seems to originate from this local tradition of homophonic movements. It can also be found in pieces by a certain Wenzel Lambel (four-part, before 1844) or by the young Anton Bruckner (only three-part, 1847). These occasional pieces, composed on an afternoon in the fall of 1812, thus document a once lively custom that would otherwise have sunk into the maelstrom of history. - In Vienna, on the other hand, the three short movements were evidently of little use; they were provided with texts and performed with a male choir for Beethoven's own funeral and for the dedication of the gravestone.
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