{"id":3810,"date":"2016-03-21T04:44:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T17:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emotemuse.com\/g\/?p=3810"},"modified":"2016-03-21T04:44:27","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T17:44:27","slug":"beethovens-compositional-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/?p=3810","title":{"rendered":"Beethoven’s compositional process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beethoven was revising Fidelio<\/em> when he wrote to Georg Freiedrich Treitschke (who was helping to revise the libretto) (1)<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Now, of course, everything has to be done at once; and I could composer something new far more quickly than patch up the old with something new, as I am now doing.\u00a0For my custom when I am composing even instrumental music is always to keep the whole in view – But in this case the whole of my work is – to a certain extent – scattered in all directions; and I have to think out the entire work again – To produce the opera in a fortnight is certainly out of the question.\u00a0I am still convinced that it will take us four weeks.\u00a0Meanwhile the first act will be finished in a few days – But there is still much to be done to the second act and I have to compose a new overture as well; but this is the easiest task of all, I admit, because I can write an entirely new on – Before my concert I had just made a few sketches here and there, both in the first and second acts; and only a few days ago I was able to begin to work them out – The score of the opera has been copied as wretchedly as anything I have ever seen; I have to check every single note (it was probably stolen).\u00a0 In short, I assure you, dear T[reitschke], that this opera will win for me a martyr”s crown.\u00a0Had you not taken so much trouble with it and revised everything so satisfactorily, for which I shall ever be grateful to you, I would hardly bring myself to do my share – But by your work you have salvaged a few good bits of a ship that was wrecked and stranded.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Anderson, Emily, ed. (1961) The Letters of Beethoven<\/em>.\u00a03 Vol., London: St. Martin”s Press.\u00a0Letter 479.\u00a0Cited in: Marek, George (1969) Beethoven: Biography of a Genius<\/em>.\u00a0London: William Kimber, p.471-2.<\/p>\n

<\/a>(1) The original German libretto was by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beethoven was revising Fidelio when he wrote to Georg Freiedrich Treitschke (who was helping to revise the libretto) (1): Now, of course, everything has to be done at once; and I could composer something new far more quickly than patch up the old with something new, as I am now doing.\u00a0For my custom when I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[560,38],"class_list":["post-3810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-creative-process","tag-beethoven","tag-compositional-process"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3811,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions\/3811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}