Logo: takte
Das Bärenreiter Magazin
  • Portrait
  • Music Theatre
  • Orchestra
  • Contemp. Music
  • Complete Ed.
  • Publications
  • Calendar
  • Contact

Deutsch wechsle zu deutsch

Many mysteries solved. Beethoven’s Leonore Overtures in a new critical edition

Ludwig van Beethoven: Overtures to “Leonore” nos. I, II and III.

Edited by Helga Lühning.

Publisher: Bärenreiter. BA 8831–8833 Overtures nos. I and II available on hire, no. III available on sale (forthcoming, March 2019)

 

Picture: Leonore II Abschrift (Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, Sammlung H. C. Bodmer). Beethoven deleted the first trumpet call and wrote the note “Vi = de” above the linking measures. Next to this Felix Mendelssohn noted: “should probably remain? FMB”.

The source material for the three “Leonore” Overtures is extremely poor. Helga Lühning now sheds light on the different versions as far as sources allow.

On 22 December 1827, nine months after Beethoven’s death, a sensational announcement appeared in a Munich music periodical: “Tobias Haslinger’s music shop in Vienna has acquired an as yet unknown grand and distinctive Overture for Orchestra (opus 138) from L. van Beethoven’s musical estate and is to publish the same in ten different editions.” A couple of weeks later, on 7 February 1828, the premiere of Leonore no. I took place in Vienna. It remains a mystery as to why Beethoven kept an extensive, almost complete composition of its kind hidden away. Fanny Hensel found a humorous explanation in an account to her sister about the performance conducted by her brother Felix Mendelssohn in 1840: “Ah Beckchen! We have discovered an Overture to ‘Leonore’: a rare piece! It has apparently never been played, Beethoven did not like it, and he put it aside. The man had no taste! It is as fine, as interesting, and as charming as anything I know.” (Sebastian Hensel, Die Familie Mendelssohn 1729–1847. Nach Briefen und Tagebüchern, Berlin 1879, Vol. 2, p. 9.)

In Mendelssohn’s memorable Gewandhaus concert, all three Leonore overtures were heard together for the first time, including – for the first time since the premiere in 1805 – Leonore no. II, also completely unknown. Anton Schindler had acquired the score of this, and now, in order to enhance the status of “his” overture, had invented the picturesque story of a rehearsal performance at Prince Lichnowsky’s, at which a group of connoisseurs is said to have found Leonore no. I “insufficiently representative of the content of the work”. The story was invented, but Schindler’s overture henceforth became the second, and what was in fact the third, only composed in 1807, became the first. And the purported judgement of the group of connoisseurs continued to exert its effect. What, however, should not be overlooked is the fact that Leonore no. I was a perfectly successful attempt at finding a new solution for the link between overture and opera (as then happened even more radically in the overture to Fidelio).

The surviving sources are unusually bad for all three Leonore overtures. Leonore no. II survives in two authentic manuscripts, both of which are incomplete. In the first, a copy corrected by Beethoven which had belonged to the 1805 performance material, a total of 61 measures are missing in three places. In addition, Beethoven cut the first trumpet call and the linking measures. In the second manuscript, which was only made into a score in 1808, the three sections of missing measures are indeed filled out, but the trombone parts are missing and the trumpet part in the trumpet calls.

For Leonore no. I the copy owned by Haslinger remains the sole source. It is only through this, or more precisely, only through the few autograph sketches and notes in it that Beethoven’s authorship is confirmed at all.

Even the famous Leonore no. III survives incomplete. Admittedly the Overture is the only part of the entire group of works of the Leonore-Fidelio opera which Beethoven published in an original edition (in instrumental parts). But here, too, the discrepancy between the two main sources is exceptionally large. It was therefore necessary to check all available copies (including relatively late or even posthumous ones) for the edition, and to incorporate these in places. Of particular interest is the analysis of the first printed score (1828), which has influenced the reception of the work until now through its being used in the old Complete Edition, with its adjustments, additions and double markings.

Many mysteries surrounded the overtures: why did Beethoven cut the second trumpet call in Leonore no. II? Why did he have another copy of Leonore II made in 1808 (after Leonore no. I and Leonore no. III).  Are the two copies really fragments or are they different versions? When, and for what occasion, was Leonore no. I written? How did Leonore no. III end up in Prague? And how did it end up in Stubendorf? – Most of these mysteries can be solved.   

Helga Lühning
(from [[t]akte 2/2018 – translation: Elizabeth Robinson)

<- Back to: Orchestra

Deutsch wechsle zu deutsch

Orchestra

Gabriel Fauré and the Orchestra: A Re-evaluation
Sensual, doleful, emotional. Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini's “Dies illa” for Basel
Infectious enthusiasm. In Memoriam: Carl Davis CBE
Ancient myth for the concert hall. Georg Friedrich Handel's "Semele"
The Triumph of Time and Truth. Handel's "Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verità"
In Honor of the Saints of Music. Handel's second Cecilian Ode
Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion of 1725
Premieres of Works by Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini
The individual and the collective. Miroslav Srnka’s “Superorganisms” for Tokyo
Ut Orpheus, now distributed by Alkor
A new attempt. Michael Ostrzyga‘s completion of Mozart‘s Requiem
A harpsichord concerto! Miroslav Srnka’s new work for Mahan Esfahani
Le retour à la vie – Summer Festivals 2021
“Super flumina Babylonis”. A rediscovered choral work by Camille Saint-Saëns
Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini’s orchestral work to complement Mahler’s 4th Symphony
ImprintData Protection