A new overture – fast

Beethoven’s revised version of Fidelio was due to be premiered on the 23rd May 1814. Beethoven had planned to write a new overture for the performance. He was still yet to complete it before the final rehearsal on the 22nd May. The night before, he was dining out with his physician (Dr. Bertolini). After dinner, he took a menu, drew lines on its blank side, and began to write. “Come, let”s go”, said Bertolini. “No,” Beethoven replied, “wait a moment. I have an idea for my overture.” Bertolini left, and Beethoven remained to finish his sketch. (1) Treitschke, who revised the libretto for the opera, recounted the final rehearsal and first performance:

The orchestra was called to rehearsal on the morning of the performance. B. [Beethoven] did not come. After waiting a long time we drove to his lodgings to bring him, but – he lay in bed, sleeping soundly, beside him stood a goblet with wine and a biscuit in it, the sheets of the overture were scattered on the bed and floor. A burnt-out candle showed that he had worked far into the night. The impossibility of completing the overture was plain; for this occasion his overture to Prometheus (2) was taken and the announcement that because of obstacles which had presented themselves the new overture would have to be dispensed with today, enabled the numerous audience to guess the sufficient reason. (3)

Beethoven later remember the incident and remarked “the people applauded and I was ashamed. It did not belong to the rest.” (4)

Beethoven “conducted” the first performance, but Michael Umlauf (who also conducted Beethoven”s Ninth Symphony) actually gave the real cues behind his back.

The new overture to Fidelio was performed at the performance on May 26 and “was received with tempestuous applause.” (5)

(1) Marek, George (1969) Beethoven: Biography of a Genius. London: William Kimber, p.473.

(2) According to Marek (op. cit.) The actual overture played was actually probably that of The Ruins of Athens

(3) Cited in Marek, op. cit.

(4) Ibid.

(5) Ibid., p.474.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

,

Featured Content

American Western Film Soundtracks
“Morricone brought the electric guitar to the western. The great thing, though, about the electric guitar in the western is that there were no electric guitars, but somehow he did it so committedly that nobody ever questioned it. It was only much later people started to say, ‘How come there’s an electric guitar part there?’ […]
The best music
“The best music is the music that persuades us that there is no other music in the world.” – Alex Ross, music critic  Cited in: Ross, Alex, “From Classical to punk”, Limelight, January 2011, p.29.
Start with one note
Ravel in conversation with Mme André Bloch: “I don’t have ideas.  To begin with, nothing forces itself on me.” “But if there’s no beginning, how do you follow it up? What do you write down first of all?” “A note at random, then a second one and, sometimes, a third.  I then see what results.  […]
On Artur Schnable’s playing
Artur Schnabel is a pianist unlike any other. One is conscious in listening to him of a powerful and original mind revealing unsuspected meanings and complications in music as familiar as Brahms’s Intermezzi and Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ Sonata. His tone is a rule dry in anything above a piano, but a sudden touch of the pedal […]
Education and research
Education & research services in the fields below are offered both: – online – face to face Skill areas: – Aural and harmony – Analysis – Music history – Piano tuition How can Emotemuse help you? – Tuition – Research and analysis Contact   THE CRAFT OF THE MUSICAL LANGUAGE Greg Smith completed a Bachelor […]
Can you teach resourcefulness
Young musicians will need resourcefulness to make their way in the world. Music “jobs” in the future are likely to be less attached to institutions (many of which are troubled in one way or another), entrepreneurial, and varied beyond a straight performance career to include all manner of teaching, coaching,  and work we could loosely […]
The art of listening
“It’s a challenge, for me at least, to do nothing but listen.  You need to set aside time for it.  You need to concentrate on the music alone (and not on your next deadline).  But when it works, you open yourself up to the transcendent ecstasy good music can bring.” Francis Merson, editor, Limelight, April […]
Water music
A common theme in the music of French composers at pre world war I was water.  Debussy wrote En bateau (On the Boat), Sirenes (Sirens), Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the Water), Voiles (Sails), and La Cathedrale engloutie (The Engulfed Cathedral).  Ravel wrote Jeux d’Eau (The Water Fountain), and Ondine. So striking a peculiarity of […]
Piotr Anderszewski on interpretation
To me it’s all about how you read and translate the music you play: the most important thing is to reach the point where you feel you understand what happened in the composer’s mind before he actually wrote it. Musical notation is a very sophisticated yet imperfect system; it was the only way for the […]
Elgar’s football team
Elgar loved his football, particularly the Wolverhampton team.  His friend Dorebella recalled the first match he attended at Wolverhampton: It all delighted him. The dense crowd flowing down the road like a river; the roar of welcome as the rival teams came on to the ground; the shouts of men calling to their player friends […]