Three Equals for four trombones, WoO 30

They were commissioned in the autumn of 1812 by the Stadtkapellmeister of Linz, Franz Xaver Glöggl, for performance as tower music on All Souls' Day.

2 (again arranged by Seyfried for male voice choir) was sung at the dedication of Beethoven's gravestone on the first anniversary of his death in March 1828.

All three equals were played at the state funerals of W. E. Gladstone and King Edward VII, where one writer remarked on their "tones of weird simplicity and exquisite pathos",[3] and they have become part of the standard trombone repertory.

Equal-voiced music, written for a specific restricted range of voices was developed through the Middle Ages and continues to be composed.

[5] As well as writing pieces a voce piena, composers used more restricted ranges throughout the sixteenth century, in all major genres, and for a number of reasons.

[5] Such designations have often been translated and understood as "equal voices", but the wide variety of music answering to this description shows that these labels are often inadequate or even quite misleading.

[7][better source needed] The terms mentioned above came into use during the development of plainchant, which was sung to a single melody or cantus held by the tenor (from Lat.

He and his band of musicians, also called Stadtpfeifer (the German plural is the same as the singular) played music for loud and penetrating wind or brass instruments (alta cappella) from church towers and town hall balconies.

By 1600 Halle, Dresden, Berlin, Cologne, Stettin, Nordhausen and even Eisenach (J. S. Bach's birthplace) with only 6,000 inhabitants, all had 'Stadpfeifers', whose job it was to sound the hours ('Stundenblasen') in the days before striking clocks were common in towers and churches.

Another Leipzig Stadtpfeifer and virtuoso trumpet player Gottfried Reiche (1667–1734)[22] described tower music in his preface to Vier und zwanzig Neue Quatricinia (1696) for cornett and three trombones, as "a sign of joy and peace", an embodiment of the spiritual-cultural life of the city "certainly whenever the whole country is in mourning, or in war, or when other misfortune is to be lamented.

[1] Among the most popular of tunes were the Heilig-Leider, paraphrases in German of the Sanctus from the Latin Mass, which came into fashion after the enlightened reforms of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I promoted the use of the vernacular in church services.

[1] According to one Stadtpfeifer named Hornbock, quoted in Johann Kuhnau's Quack-Salber: "We know from experience that when our city pipers in the festive season play a religious song with nothing but trombones from the tower, then we are greatly moved, and imagine that we hear the angels singing.".

[25] The art of trombone-playing was also kept a trade secret by musicians' guilds who feared the loss of their livelihood, one reason why there are few early treatises on the subject.

Their use is mentioned in a handbook explaining the multitude of church music regulations, Kirchenmusik-Ordnung (1828), by the Linz Stadtpfeifer Franz Glöggl.

[29][d] There appears an explanatory guide of musical worship, according to the existing church music-order for all functions occurring on Sundays, festivals, vespers, litanies, masses, funerals, processions etc.

In all countries where Roman Catholic worship prevails, through its essential usefulness of numerous sales, where the lack of such a reliable signpost has been felt for a long time: until the present moment when – wonderfully enough – under the supervision of some well-informed experts – the simple expedient of this book has been devised.

His doctor again ordered Beethoven to rest in the Bohemian spa town of Teplitz, where he wrote the well-known letter to his "Immortal Beloved", whose identity is still unknown.

Furthermore, Beethoven's youngest brother, (Nikolaus) Johann, had begun cohabiting during 1812 with Therese Obermayer, who already had a 5-year-old illegitimate daughter (Amalie Waldmann) from a previous relationship.

[36][f] Although he finished the eighth symphony after only four months in Linz in October, Johann remained obdurate, and Beethoven appealed instead to the bishop, to the civic authorities and to the police.

[36] Composition Background The Stadtpfeifer in Linz at the time was Franz Xaver Glöggl, whose full title was Stadtcapell- und Turmmeister (i.e. 'director of city music and tower master').

According to an anonymous account (probably by Haslinger) printed in the introduction to Ignaz Seyfried's choral settings of the equals: L. van Beethoven ... was asked by the local cathedral Kapellmeister, Mr Glöggl, to compose for him so-called Equale for four trombones for All Souls' Day (November 2nd), which he would then have his musicians play, as was usual, on this feast.

Beethoven declared himself willing; he actually wrote three movements for this purpose, which are indeed short, but which, through the excellence of their design, attest to the master's hand; and the current publisher of these same [works] was later so fortunate to be able to enrich his collection, which through the many autographs of this great composer had acquired such estimable worth, with this original manuscript.

1838 Glöggl himself reported in a letter to Robert Schumann that "he [Beethoven] also wrote me some mourning pieces for trombones, of which I gave two to my friend Haslinger in Vienna, and one of them was played at his funeral.

[36][i] Fifteen years later, as Beethoven was dying, Haslinger approached Ignaz von Seyfried with the manuscript on the morning of 26 March 1827 to discuss the possibility of forming a choral anthem out of these Equals to the words of the Miserere.

During the procession, this shall be played alternately with a three- or four-voice choral Miserere until arrival at the entrance of the church or graveyard, where the benediction of the Requiem aeternam is sung.

2 was sung at Beethoven's grave on 26 March 1828, the first anniversary of his death, in another arrangement by Seyfried, setting words by the poet Franz Grillparzer.

1 & 3) for four-part male voice chorus, setting the words of verses 1 and 3 of Psalm 51, Miserere mei, Domine and Amplius.

2, in a setting of words by Franz Grillparzer (Du, dem nie im Leben Ruhstatt ward) was played at the dedication of the gravestone 29 March 1828.

[16] The hushed stillness which pervaded the noble fane was broken with indescribable tenderness as the sustained chord of D minor fell upon the ears of the great congregation in tones of weird simplicity and exquisite pathos.