Sonate C-Dur - Preußenlied

Yes, I am from the East Prussian tribe, my father was born and grew up there and he and his family dramatically fled from the Russians towards Lower Saxony. Then they went on to the Ruhr area, where I was born, grew up there and moved to Bonn in the Rhineland in the early 1980s.

So what could be more natural than to tackle the Prussian Song!

The Prussian Song is a patriotic song that at times had the status of Prussia's national anthem. It consists of six verses. The teacher Bernhard Thiersch from Kirchscheidungen wrote the first five verses in Halberstadt in 1830 under the title Preußens Vaterland (Prussian Fatherland) for the birthday of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. The melody, which is well-known today, was composed by the (later) royal music director of the Second Guards Grenadier Regiment August Neithardt in 1832. Thiersch only added the sixth verse in 1851.

We hear another setting of the song, which presents itself to the listener in the form of a three-part sonata.
A song movement is followed by a trio and a very expansive 4-part fugue.

The composition is characterised on the one hand by rhythmic shifts, with straight quavers under sharply dotted quavers, and on the other hand by melodic progressions stretching over large (mostly) sixth intervals.
The song is relatively long, lasting over 20 bars. The song movement and trio are based on the unchanged melody, while the fugue is content with the first 4 bars. The tempo remains the same throughout the entire composition and, at 80 BPM, is more of an andante.