The Band of the 2nd Bn. The Welch Regiment
(By kind permission of Lieut.-Col. T.G. Mathias, D.S.O., and Officers)
Bandmaster, C.L. Ward
Some time after Adelaide was published Beethoven wrote to the poet Matthisson
(the author of the words) sending him a copy of the song, and speaking of his setting of the 'heavenly' words as 'something which came so warmly from my heart'. Its composition clearly gave him keen pleasure, probably because the poem expressed so well the romantic, almost sentimental side of his nature in the early years of manhood.
The friend of Adelaide wanders lonely among the beauties of Nature, in which every object reminds him of the absent one. He sees her face in evening clouds, in starlit night. The breezes whisper her name; he hears it in the rustling of the grass and the song of the birds.
The climax of the song comes as with a change of emotion he exclaims: 'See, on my grave there blooms a flower from the ashes of my heart; on every purple leaflet gleams "Adelaide"'.
