Aria in F major: "Prüfung des Küssens"; for bass & orchestra "Meine weise Mutter spricht" (c. 1790)

Biamonti 28, WoO 89
Beethoven wrote two arias for bass ad orchestra using text from Goethe's singspiel Claudine de Villabella. The text itself was originally, it seems, part of a colaboration between Goethe and the famously pirckly composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt. Claudine itself is a work in the Sturm und Drang mode telling the story of the young Claudine and the awkward vagabond Don Pedro. Intrigue and disguises follow and eventually all end up happily ever after. A search of the libretto of the singspiel, however, does not turn up this text.

This singspiel aria for bass and orchestra gives us a sense of what Beethoven might have written if he were a completely different composer and writing buffa arias. It's a rather tame, Mozartian sentimentality buffa. Nothing gets out of control, nothing gets too exciting; the piece is over as it began.