Was Beethoven any Good at Choral Music?

Fair bit to unpick in your reply (sorry!). The Fidelio issue I might deal with in a separate post, mainly because your question set me off thinking about the differences between how Beethoven writes for Pizarro in "Ah, welch ein Augenblick" and how Puccini writes for Scarpia in "Va Tosca". Leaving aside all other questions, the comparison is instructive on a *how to write for the voice* level and shows up some interesting differences between composers having a musico-dramatic vision they can't/can articulate through the voice - and given the roles/Fachs have a fair overlap it makes direct comparison possible.

My one-page summary would agree Fidelio is less extreme, but it's still problematic on a fundamental craft level, and it's less extreme more because Beethoven has greater margin-for-error in what he's writing than that he actively writes well.

As a small example, one of Beethoven's big weaknesses vocally is how he writes *across* registers in a way that undermines what he wants to achieve, either because he doesn't give the Singer much ability to Cover the sound or because he doesn't understand that the more rhythmically active the part the less weight you can give to any one note (think the difference between a Leggiero Tenor's dexterity and a Dramatic Tenor's weight - and then think how often Beethoven seems to write as if these two qualities can be produced indefinitely and *simultaneously* in one voice regardless of context).

Both these elements can be found in the "Turkish" Tenor solo in the 9th, for brevity I'll focus on the last phrase ("Freudig wie ein Held zu Siegen"). Musically Beethoven understands that he wants the Tenor to climax around the top Bb, and Dramatically/Musically this is a good Payoff.

But in the last "Held zum Siegen" he cuts the initial Bb short and has a rhythmic, ascending passage going from F5-Bb5. Leaving aside his word-setting, this is a passage that, vocally, goes directly over the Tenor's transition notes (F5-Ab5); as a general rule, if you want to increase intensity in this part of the Voice then you have to Cover the sound (it's pretty much essential when singing Forte properly, and most vocal problems Choirs (or solo singers) have in "Big" pieces stem from not learning how to Cover the sound to generate intensity).

But Covering the sound is not something you can really do in Coloratura, which is all about good, flexible placement and being leggiero enough to show off via dexterity; and the rhythmic impetus Beethoven writes with is Coloraturaesque.
So Beethoven is essentially asking the instrument to do two things simultaneously that *it cannot physically do*, but also focussing on *either one alone* would undercut his musical vision as written.

But crucially, his vision could be *as musically satisfying* and *no less vocally demanding*, but *much less difficult* if he simply scrapped the last solo repetition of "ein Held", replaced it with "zum" (which would help the placement of the "Siegen" given that 'i' and 'u' are the slimmest vowels and are most reliant on pure head-resonance), had a sustained top Bb in the penultimate bar (last 2 bars using only the word "Siegen", Bb5-Bb4 leap), and found a way of moving all the rhythmic material into the Chorus.

When people comment about Beethoven's "poor" vocal writing, I'd wager that they subconsciously mean this kind of inability on his part to align his musical vision with the best vocal solution for that vision, and it's particularly marked because his *musical vision* is so good. Given she had exactly the kind of voice one would expect to suit Beethoven 9, I'd also wager this is what Birgit Nilsson meant when she described his writing as "ungrateful".

By way of contrast, my outlined suggestion is pretty much what Verdi does in the climax of Manrico's "Di Quella Pira" in Trovatore, simplifying Manrico's part at the point the rhythmically-active Chorus comes in to enable the Voice to sustain the climactic *money notes* by Covering - it's no less musically, rhythmically, or dramatically intense for Verdi letting the Voice play to its natural strengths (and Verdi's comments on the 9th Symphony should really be the starting point for any investigation about Beethoven's Vocal writing; it's the considered opinion of someone who *knows* the feel of good vocal writing).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ0_fFBc5sI

(granted the top C doesn't appear in the Score, but Verdi would likely expect a Star Tenor to do something along those lines and seems to have written with this in mind structurally).

This kind of common-problem I've outlined is also present in Fidelio, but without the relentlessness of the later Choral Works (it's not easy to write Fugues into an Opera, and the Characters don't spend *all* the time on stage) it doesn't get aurally noticed as much. But that, I'd argue, is more to do with Beethoven not being allowed to indulge in his excesses - it's not because he has some kind of more competent approach to the writing as *vocal* writing.

Fidelio's also awkward because, as Klemperer shrewdly observed, Beethoven isn't really a composer with much theatrical gift, and this seems a common observation from Fidelio directors that I've talked to at various levels of the job. A lot of blood is spilt making the thing cohere on a basic level before worrying about the quality of the drama they want to direct (to the extent that it's not unheard of for a director either to scrap the dialogue or re-write it).

The question of Traditions I'd answer in two ways (and I'm no musicologist so this is purely from a Craftsman's perspective). First is that on a training level the Italian facile melodic ease is far from facile - it's the Vocal Fulcrum.

There's a very good reason the Bel Canto tradition has a reverence as the basis of good singing, and that's because it forces the singer to be disciplined both in how to place the voice well to generate maximum mechanical advantage (especially given Italian has the purest vowels) and in the physicality required to achieve a true legato/mezza di voce. In the long run this is what will give true vocal freedom; you can cheat it in certain other rep (Lieder/Melodie, Backing Vocals, and "Early Music" groups spring to mind particularly, or anything including microphones), but that will limit what you can explore as an artist unless you have particularly fine cheekbones.

At the risk of a tenuous sporting analogy, it's like the forward defence in Cricket: regardless of which *type* of cricket you play, without a good Forward Defence you'll keep getting out cheaply and won't be able to play your shots to score runs.

With my cynic hat on, a composer who ignores this is highly likely not to understand the Voice on a mechanistic level - after that the question of artistry is pretty much irrelevant given that artistry can't easily be separated from technique; or rather, artistry is contingent on technique.

Second is that even if other compositional schools developed in artistic response to the Italian, many of the practitioners of French/German Opera (at least the ones with works that survive now or are seen as pivotal historically) seem to have had a much greater practical affinity or closeness to the voice as an instrument than Beethoven ever did; I'm not a Beethoven specialist, but my recollection is that there's very little evidence he was that interested in the Voice or associated with singers either in friendship or as part of his education (it seems he envied Rossini's facility given his struggles writing Fidelio).

By contrast, Weber's wife was a singer, Meyebeer studied in Italy, as did Massenet and Gounod, Bizet both studied in Italy and with Gounod, Saint-Saens and Gounod had Pauline Viardot (Mezzo Soprano star of her day) as a significant mentor etc (quite a few of them also worked as Choirmasters/Organists). And I'd say that the Italianate sense of how to write for the voice is present in the best exemplars of those other traditions - on a flippant level, the most commonly performed French Grand Opera is Don Carlos, which was written by Verdi.

So even if French or German composers set out to write a musical style that was distinct from Italian, the best of them seem to have realised that the Italian tradition has a level of practical vocal craft to it, which can't be found elsewhere, that is essential to well-crafted musical writing irrespective of an aesthetic tradition.

That Beethoven might have chosen either to ignore this or set himself against it is, I'd say, further evidence that he didn't understand the voice rather than a strong case for a superior aesthetic sense. Zinedine Zidane summarises the issue perfectly: "Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?"
The aesthetic argument as defence is the kind of argument I suspect wouldn't happen if the composer in question *wasn't* Beethoven.