Beethoven: Leonore Overture No.3, Op.72a (1806)

“Leonore”? No.3? Simply explained by the fact that this was originally the title of what would prove to be Beethoven’s one and only opera, used for both its first performances in 1805 and its shorter revision the following year; the work we now know as “Fidelio” didn’t finally appear until 1814, following an even more drastic revision. For this he produced a fourth overture (in E major rather than C, also headed “Fidelio”); the present work – used for the second run of performances in 1806 – is a major reworking of “Leonore No.2”, the opera’s designated prelude for 1805 (“No.1” arose out of the composer’s belief that Nos.2 and 3 were too substantial for purpose, and so was written specifically for performances in Prague in 1808 – subsequently aborted). It could be claimed that this magnificent quasi-symphonic poem represents a psychological précis of the entire opera, with the hero Florestan’s great dungeon aria inextricably bound up in its thematic structure (first heard near the beginning on the clarinet, in Beethoven’s favourite key for heartfelt love-song: A flat major); the famous off-stage trumpet signal, at the heart of the drama, will certainly not be missed!

In her classic book on the composer Marion Scott remarks that “in 1806 Beethoven was as near real happiness as at any time in his career”. How could this be, given the second failure of Leonore – together with the recent bombardment of Vienna by N. Bonaparte, not forgetting the ever present spectre of creeping deafness? Yet an astonishing stream of masterpieces followed in quick succession: the “Appassionata” sonata, the triple concerto, fourth piano concerto, the three rather extraordinary (some might say revolutionary) “Rasumovsky” string quartets, and the endearingly lyrical fourth symphony. Of the succession of overtures explained above, Robert Schumann wrote most eloquently, at considerable length, following a performance of all four by his friend Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig on 9 January 1840: “… most interesting are the relations between the second and third … how he does not rest so that his work may reach the perfection we admire in the third…”.

© Alan George
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