Ah! Perfido
BEETHOVEN 1770–1827
Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido did not enjoy an auspicious beginning. He was engaged to conduct the premiere in Vienna near the end of 1808. Unfortunately, he and the soprano had problems they were unable to resolve. She refused to perform with him conducting, so the presenters scrambled to find a replacement. They settled on a very young, fairly inexperienced soprano who inadvertently massacred the piece. Fortunately, the work survived this initial setback and has become a staple in the repertory of dramatic works for sopranos and orchestras.
The text was penned by the poet and opera librettist Pietro Metastasio. It centers around the continual shift of a betrayed woman’s emotions. Ranging from soulful sacrifice to profound sadness, it ends with a simple, pleading question: If in such grief, do I not deserve pity? Beethoven’s music articulates these emotional shifts with many rapid changes in tempo, texture, mode, and dynamics. The composer’s careful attention to mapping the text’s dramatic content to the musical gestures in the voice and orchestra made this work a success. One can almost use the orchestral writing as a “translation” of the Italian text for a non-Italianate audience.
— Anthony Suter
Concert Performance
Orchestration
soprano voice, flute, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, strings