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Beethoven's Creative Process of Composition Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 7, Number 3, Fall 1998 Beethoven’s Creative Process of Composition Reflections on Leonore (1806) And Fidelio (1814) by Anno Hellenbroich In the springtime of my life Fortune fled from me! I dared to boldly tell the truth, And chains are my reward. Florestan’s Aria, Fidelio, Act II Come, Hope! Let not the last star Of the weary be dimmed! Light my goal, be it ever so far, Love will attain it. I follow my inner impulse; I waver not; The duty of true married love Strengthens me! Leonore’s Aria, Fidelio, Act I t least three completely different productions of Beethoven’s Great Opera Fidelio (1814) were pre- Asented on German stages in 1997 alone. Can it be, that Beethoven’s musical personification of a great figure as wife, Leonore—who, in her singing celebrates Y not only “true married love,” but, by risking her life, N , n o i achieves the rescue of Florestan in the dramatic develop- t c e l l o ment of the “Great Opera”—might have a completely C r e unheard-of effect at the present historical turning point? g n a r G For sure, it is certain that the number of Fidelio perfor- e h T mances demonstrates, that, completely contrary to the Florestan is saved from Pizarro by Leonore. spirit of the times, people today are more than ever seek- ing the impact of Beethovenesque “Great Opera.” The musical changes from Leonore to If one examines the performances in detail, it is com- Fidelio—the dimly conscious metaphor pletely apparent from them, that there are still directors living in the old era of ’68-generation “director’s theater” of ‘liberation of creative power through (Regietheater).* According to one review, one of the freedom’—can be recognized as the __________ ‘loose cords’ through which the work of * A recent decades’ fad, according to which theatrical “freedom” is art is tightened and shaped. expressed by discarding—or, in fact, critiquing—the ideas and intentions of even the greatest Classical authors, in favor of the titil- lating preoccupations of the “liberated” director.–Ed. 19 © 1998 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. unfortunate directors must be a Left: Title page of the Leonore total “hard case” proponent of version, 1806. Facing page: Billboard ’68-era “director’s theater,” and for the March 29, 1806 performance, using the title Beethoven did not wish, Adorno’s rage against the “affir- “Fidelio.” (Reproduced by permission mative character of Beethoven’s of the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn) music” appears to have supplied a special arsenal for his Fidelio- spectacle. The critic loudly ferent versions, the term acclaims this performance in “Leonore”—which is how Bremen, produced by Johann Beethoven also named his first Kresnick, as “political farce.” three Overtures—signifies the One reads: “Florestan . is a early versions of 1805 and 1806; beatnik, a ladies’ man, a drunk, the 1814 opera presented in per- and a hardline, ideological com- formance is customarily called munist.” Kresnick has also, with- Fidelio.) out hesitation, shifted the central This lays the foundation to prison scene, in which Bee- understand this great work of thoven’s Florestan sings the art—(to term it “opera,” today, above-cited lines, to “the mead- after the unspeakable theatrical ows of Munich, at Oktoberfest”! spectacles of the most recent peri- The conflict, the clash, of two od, is difficult)—more precisely worldviews, could not be greater. than before, as the continuation There, in Beethoven’s composi- of Friedrich Schiller’s thoughts tion, in idea and in expression, on “aesthetical education,” of his truth, married love, and courage “Art of Tragedy.” Particularly, are celebrated; here, be it in because Beethoven, in the process Bremen or elsewhere, lack of character, and the misery of of the changes and development of Leonore, ever more today’s egotist associated with it. intelligibly elaborated the profound ideas of the sacrifice The concert performance in Bonn during the 35th of “personal life” for the establishment of right, justice, Beethoven Festival, of Leonore, the early version of Fide- and freedom. However, not only this: How, in the aria of lio from 1806, marked an important exception. Because, Leonore, and, above all, in the “keystone” aria of Flo- for the first time in 191 years, a performance could be restan in 1814, Beethoven brought something to expres- modelled on a score which had been reconstructed sion as metaphor, which far surpasses the transitory back- “authentically” from notes, libretto, and also stage direc- ground plot of this dramatic work, of hope for rescue. tions, according to scientific criteria. Thanks to the tire- Beethoven discovers a musical metaphor which reveals less work of Dr. Helga Lühning of the Bonn Beethoven- the inner domain of the individual, of his terror, not only Archiv, this reconstruction of the 1806 Leonore will soon in the face of his lonely death in a dungeon, but of his be published in the new Beethoven Complete Works. close presentiment-of-death fear of the dissolution of his The publication of the libretto from 1806, and individ- creative “I,” which is overcome in the exultant duet, “O ual studies of “Leonore 1806” for the Beethoven Festival, namenlose Freude” [“O Nameless Joy”] and in the final are exciting to read even today. For they create the possi- chorus. The musical changes which Beethoven carried bility of studying, in each particular, the intricate process out on the path from Leonore in 1805, up to the perfor- of creating this work of art over a decade—from 1803/4 mance of Fidelio in 1814, the dimly conscious metaphor until 1814. The successful performance of the orchestra of “liberation of creative power through freedom,” can be of the Bonn Beethovenhalle, gave the accompanying recognized in Beethoven’s work as the “loose cords” three-day distinguished scientific symposium on the topic through which the work of art is tightened and shaped. “Leonore 1806,” artistic confirmation of the thesis, that Schiller formulates this in a general way in a letter to the juxtaposition of the Leonore of 1806 and Fidelio of Caroline von Wolzogen: 1814 with the various famous artistic figures of There is something mysterious in the effect of music, that it Beethoven’s circles, is the best way to trace the dramatic, moves our inner self, so that it becomes a means of connec- conceptual, and declamatory-musical sharpening of tion between two worlds. We feel ourselves enlarged, Beethoven’s artistic idea. (In order to distinguish the dif- uplifted, rapt—what is that called other than in the domain 20 of Nature, drawn to God? interest you, I want to keep this Music is a higher, finer language promise. The music is of the than words. In the moments, most beautiful and most perfect where every utterance of the that one can hear; the subject is uplifted soul seems too weak, interesting, since it presents the where it despairs of conceiving freeing of a prisoner through the more elegant words, there the faithfulness and the courage of musical art begins. From the his wife; however, despite all outset, all song has this basis. that, nothing has caused Beethoven so much vexation as Beethoven’s intense preoccu- this work, whose value people pation with Schiller’s view of aes- will only fully appreciate for the thetical education, of the art of first time in the future. First, it was staged seven days after the tragedy, of the sublime, can also invasion of the French troops; be recognized in the shaping of therefore, at a completely unfa- the Leonore material, not only in vorable point in time. Naturally, the original form in 1805, the year the theaters were empty, and of Friedrich Schiller’s death, but Beethoven, who at the same time also in the treatment of the noticed several defects in the Leonore version of 1806. Bee- treatment of the text, withdrew thoven’s intellectual agreement the opera after the third perfor- with Schiller’s artistic aims is par- mance. After the return of order, ticularly clear in the final Fidelio he and I put it on again. I revised version of 1814. Clearly confront- the entire script for him, by ed with the eight-year experience which the action became faster and more lively; he shortened of social developments in Europe, many pieces, and it would be in Austria—“the land of the Pha- performed three times after this to the greatest applause. iacians,”* as Beethoven was later wont to rail—he sharp- Now, however, his enemies at the theater have revolted, ened the principal psychological truths of Leonore, of a and several there, a few especially insulted at the second truly womanly character, and, of the unjustly imprisoned performance, have arranged that it has not been performed Florestan: a challenge to the approaching obliteration of since then. [cited in Stephan Ley, p. 70ff] intellectual life, and censorship of political life—an intel- lectual current which was at that time, after the oligarchi- If you read a review of the first performance, you cal Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, embodied in the could come to the conclusion that (as we say today) the Carlsbad Decrees of 1818. opera “flopped.” For example, you can read in a com- Not only Beethoven’s references to Schiller’s The Vir- mentary by Kotzebues in Der Freimütige: gin of Orleans support this, but also his contact with Friedrich Rochlitz, a composer in Leipzig, with whom A new Beethoven opera, Fidelio, or Married Love, doesn’t Schiller wished to establish a Journal for German Women appeal.
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