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)