Fidelio

Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 2: From Imprisonment to Freedom

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Beethoven was a composer who worked and reworked musical ideas in a painstaking series of sketches. His only opera, Fidelio, provides the most extreme example. Beethoven labored over it for over ten years, creating three distinct versions (1805, 1806, and 1814), and four different overtures. The overture we know as Leonore No. 2, Op. 42a opened the original 1805 Vienna premiere of Fidelio. Ultimately, Beethoven believed that the dramatic weight of the …

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The Struggle of Fidelio: Beethoven’s Four Overtures

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Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on the backside. -Ludwig van Beethoven The Italian opera composer Gioachino Rossini was, as the story goes, the ultimate procrastinator. He would often dash off the overture for a new opera the night before the opening. In the case of The Thieving Magpie, he waited until the day of the opening. Sometimes he reused a previously written overture, substituting one frothy musical joyride for …

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