The title of La tiranna, WoO125, hints at the source of this English text in an Italian aria, but we do not yet know the source; the song-aria was first published in London on 12 December 1799. The translator was British: a man named William Wennington, who was in Vienna at the end of 1798, when Beethoven probably made his acquaintance and acceded to his request to set this dramatic lament about unrequited love. Beethoven makes the piano part froth and foam in such a way as to display his own pianism; the offbeat heavy accents at the outset of each plunge by the piano into the precipice of despair are echt Beethoven in their dynamism.

from notes by Susan Youens © 2009