Zur Namensfeier

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Zur Namensfeier, (French: Jour de fête, English: Feastday or Name day) op. 115, is a symphonic overture in C minor by Ludwig van Beethoven completed in 1815, and first performed on Christmas Day 1815. It is seldom played.

Its title refers to the feastday of Emperor François I, October 4, and while Beethoven made an attempt to complete the work for this day in 1814, he was unable to finish it in time, so he set aside work on it until the following spring. The theme at the beginning is related to that which he used to set Schiller's Ode to Joy in his Ninth Symphony nine years later.

In spite of its late opus number, it is a middle-period composition. He used ideas which he had sketched between 1810 and 1814; his earliest "late period" compositions are usually dated to 1816.^[1]

[edit] References

• Lecompte Michel, Guide illustré de la musique symphonique de Beethoven, Fayard, 1995 ISBN 2-21303091X
• Joseph Kerman/Alan Tyson: "Ludwig van Beethoven", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed December 14, 2006), (subscription access)

[edit] Notes