Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 7, Number 3, Fall 1998

Beethovens 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.
Florestans 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!
Leonores Aria, Fidelio, Act I

The Granger Collection, NY

A
Florestan is saved from Pizarro by Leonore.

The musical changes from Leonore to

Fideliothe dimly conscious metaphor
of liberation of creative power through
freedomcan be recognized as the
loose cords through which the work of
art is tightened and shaped.

t least three completely different productions of

Beethovens Great Opera Fidelio (1814) were presented on German stages in 1997 alone. Can it
be, that Beethovens musical personification of a great
figure as wife, Leonorewho, in her singing celebrates
not only true married love, but, by risking her life,
achieves the rescue of Florestan in the dramatic development of the Great Operamight have a completely
unheard-of effect at the present historical turning point?
For sure, it is certain that the number of Fidelio performances demonstrates, that, completely contrary to the
spirit of the times, people today are more than ever seeking the impact of Beethovenesque Great Opera.
If one examines the performances in detail, it is completely apparent from them, that there are still directors
living in the old era of 68-generation directors theater
(Regietheater).* According to one review, one of the

__________
* A recent decades fad, according to which theatrical freedom is
expressed by discardingor, in fact, critiquingthe ideas and
intentions of even the greatest Classical authors, in favor of the titillating 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

total hard case proponent of
68-era directors theater, and
Adornos rage against the affirmative character of Beethovens
music appears to have supplied
a special arsenal for his Fideliospectacle. The critic loudly
acclaims this performance in
Bremen, produced by Johann
Kresnick, as political farce.
One reads: Florestan . . . is a
beatnik, a ladies man, a drunk,
and a hardline, ideological communist. Kresnick has also, without hesitation, shifted the central
prison scene, in which Beethovens Florestan sings the
above-cited lines, to the meadows of Munich, at Oktoberfest!
The conflict, the clash, of two
worldviews, could not be greater.
There, in Beethovens composition, in idea and in expression,
truth, married love, and courage
are celebrated; here, be it in
Bremen or elsewhere, lack of character, and the misery of
todays egotist associated with it.
The concert performance in Bonn during the 35th
Beethoven Festival, of Leonore, the early version of Fidelio from 1806, marked an important exception. Because,
for the first time in 191 years, a performance could be
modelled on a score which had been reconstructed
authentically from notes, libretto, and also stage directions, according to scientific criteria. Thanks to the tireless work of Dr. Helga Lhning of the Bonn BeethovenArchiv, this reconstruction of the 1806 Leonore will soon
be published in the new Beethoven Complete Works.
The publication of the libretto from 1806, and individual studies of Leonore 1806 for the Beethoven Festival,
are exciting to read even today. For they create the possibility of studying, in each particular, the intricate process
of creating this work of art over a decadefrom 1803/4
until 1814. The successful performance of the orchestra
of the Bonn Beethovenhalle, gave the accompanying
three-day distinguished scientific symposium on the topic
Leonore 1806, artistic confirmation of the thesis, that
the juxtaposition of the Leonore of 1806 and Fidelio of
1814 with the various famous artistic figures of
Beethovens circles, is the best way to trace the dramatic,
conceptual, and declamatory-musical sharpening of
Beethovens artistic idea. (In order to distinguish the dif20

Left: Title page of the Leonore

version, 1806. Facing page: Billboard
for the March 29, 1806 performance,
using the title Beethoven did not wish,
Fidelio. (Reproduced by permission
of the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn)

ferent versions, the term

Leonorewhich is how
Beethoven also named his first
three Overturessignifies the
early versions of 1805 and 1806;
the 1814 opera presented in performance is customarily called
Fidelio.)
This lays the foundation to
understand this great work of
art(to term it opera, today,
after the unspeakable theatrical
spectacles of the most recent period, is difficult)more precisely
than before, as the continuation
of Friedrich Schillers thoughts
on aesthetical education, of his
Art of Tragedy. Particularly,
because Beethoven, in the process
of the changes and development of Leonore, ever more
intelligibly elaborated the profound ideas of the sacrifice
of personal life for the establishment of right, justice,
and freedom. However, not only this: How, in the aria of
Leonore, and, above all, in the keystone aria of Florestan in 1814, Beethoven brought something to expression as metaphor, which far surpasses the transitory background plot of this dramatic work, of hope for rescue.
Beethoven discovers a musical metaphor which reveals
the inner domain of the individual, of his terror, not only
in the face of his lonely death in a dungeon, but of his
close presentiment-of-death fear of the dissolution of his
creative I, which is overcome in the exultant duet, O
namenlose Freude [O Nameless Joy] and in the final
chorus. The musical changes which Beethoven carried
out on the path from Leonore in 1805, up to the performance of Fidelio in 1814, the dimly conscious metaphor
of liberation of creative power through freedom, can be
recognized in Beethovens work as the loose cords
through which the work of art is tightened and shaped.
Schiller formulates this in a general way in a letter to
Caroline von Wolzogen:
There is something mysterious in the effect of music, that it
moves our inner self, so that it becomes a means of connection between two worlds. We feel ourselves enlarged,
uplifted, raptwhat is that called other than in the domain

of Nature, drawn to God?

Music is a higher, finer language
than words. In the moments,
where every utterance of the
uplifted soul seems too weak,
where it despairs of conceiving
more elegant words, there the
musical art begins. From the
outset, all song has this basis.

Beethovens intense preoccupation with Schillers view of aesthetical education, of the art of
tragedy, of the sublime, can also
be recognized in the shaping of
the Leonore material, not only in
the original form in 1805, the year
of Friedrich Schillers death, but
also in the treatment of the
Leonore version of 1806. Beethovens intellectual agreement
with Schillers artistic aims is particularly clear in the final Fidelio
version of 1814. Clearly confronted with the eight-year experience
of social developments in Europe,
in Austriathe land of the Phaiacians,* as Beethoven was later wont to railhe sharpened the principal psychological truths of Leonore, of a
truly womanly character, and, of the unjustly imprisoned
Florestan: a challenge to the approaching obliteration of
intellectual life, and censorship of political lifean intellectual current which was at that time, after the oligarchical Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, embodied in the
Carlsbad Decrees of 1818.
Not only Beethovens references to Schillers The Virgin of Orleans support this, but also his contact with
Friedrich Rochlitz, a composer in Leipzig, with whom
Schiller wished to establish a Journal for German Women
[Journal fr deutsche Frauen] just a few weeks prior to his
death.

Leonore 1805/6
On June 22, 1806, Stephan von Breuning, a friend of
Beethovens from his days in Bonn, wrote to his sister,
Eleonore, and her husband, Dr. Wegeler:
As far as I remember, I promised to write you, in my last
letter, about Beethovens opera. Since I am sure it does
__________
* Odyssey, Books 5-7. An island north of Ithaca, where the stranded
Odysseus encounters a people who lead lives of bucolic ease, surrounded by opulence and the bounties of nature.Ed.

interest you, I want to keep this

promise. The music is of the
most beautiful and most perfect
that one can hear; the subject is
interesting, since it presents the
freeing of a prisoner through the
faithfulness and the courage of
his wife; however, despite all
that, nothing has caused
Beethoven so much vexation as
this work, whose value people
will only fully appreciate for the
first time in the future. First, it
was staged seven days after the
invasion of the French troops;
therefore, at a completely unfavorable point in time. Naturally,
the theaters were empty, and
Beethoven, who at the same time
noticed several defects in the
treatment of the text, withdrew
the opera after the third performance. After the return of order,
he and I put it on again. I revised
the entire script for him, by
which the action became faster
and more lively; he shortened
many pieces, and it would be
performed three times after this to the greatest applause.
Now, however, his enemies at the theater have revolted,
and several there, a few especially insulted at the second
performance, have arranged that it has not been performed
since then. [cited in Stephan Ley, p. 70ff]

If you read a review of the first performance, you

could come to the conclusion that (as we say today) the
opera flopped. For example, you can read in a commentary by Kotzebues in Der Freimtige:
A new Beethoven opera, Fidelio, or Married Love, doesnt
appeal. It was only performed a few times, and remained
empty after the first performance. Both the melodies, as
well as the characterization, lack (as much therein is farfetched) that felicitous, excellent, overpowering expression
of passion which grips us so irresistibly in Mozarts and
Cherubinis works. . . . The text, translated by Sonnleithner, comes from a story of liberation, of the kind come into
fashion since Cherubinis Deux Journes.

Whereas, we saw in Stephan von Breunings judgment of the work, especially in light of the improvements, a confirmed, sensitive judgment of the story.
This is not accidental. Breuning enclosed in his letter
copies of two poems which he composed as publicity
for the performances of 1805/6; the second ends with the
verse, In your music, may the power of true Beauty
21

always appear!
This thought had been discussed in many ways by
Schiller, so that Breunings wish for Beethoven is completely coherent with the discussions of art, concerning
Truth and Beauty, among Beethovens circle of friends.
Schiller often plays with this fundamental idea, whether
it be the poem The Power of Song [Die Macht des
Gesanges] (Who can undo the magic of the singer; who
may resist his music?), as motivic thorough-composed
metaphor in his Ode to Joy, or as resonating motif in
The Encounter [Die Begegnung]:
On what I felt in that moment
And what I sang, I muse in vain;
I discovered a new organ in myself,
That spoke of my hearts sacred stirring;
It was the soul, which for long years bound,
Broke at once now through all chains,
And found notes in its deepest depths,
That slept in itdivine and undreamt of.

Schiller devoted the following lines to music in the

Homage to the Arts [Huldigung der Knste]:
The power of tones, which from the strings is welling,
Thou playest mightily, it well thou kenst,
What is the bosom with foreboding swelling,
Is in my tones alone in full expressed;
Upon thy senses plays a lovely magic,
As forth my stream of harmonies doth flow,
The heart would break apart in sweetness tragic,
And from the lips the soul desires to go,
And if I start my scale of tones, I bear thee
Upon it upward to the highest beauty.

Thus, in his letter, Breuning presented a concise

sketch of the story of Leonore 1805/6 from his own
experience.

The Fate of the Republican Lafayette

Obviously, people saw some fuel in the version by
Beethoven. One can sense it in Joseph Sonnleithners petition to the Vienna censorship authorities against the ban
on performance, which plays down all contemporary
political references. Sonnleithner had done the German
rendering of the Leonore material from the French production of Jean Nicholas Bouilly. He petitioned the k.k.
Police Station in writing on October 2, 1805, with Five
Reasons to retract the published performance ban;
among them: the fourth, the story itself, which I forgot
to note in the title, occurs in the Sixteenth century; therefore, no reference whatsoever can underlie it; and, fifth,
there is such a great shortage of good librettos, and the
22

one in question presents the most stirring picture of wifely virtue, and the evil-minded governor only a private
revenge, as Pedrarias exercises in Balboa. On October 5,
the k.k. Police Station permitted the performance, under
the condition that the most insulting scenes be
changed.
What really infuriated the censorship authorities? It is
said, at least, that Bouilly, who was prosecutor for the
French Revolution in Tours, had drawn on his own
experiences. Were the Austrian public authorities so sensitive, because the Leonore material contained too many
accusations about the vile imprisonment of the republican fighter for the American Revolution, the Marquis de
Lafayette? As Donald Phau wrote in a 1978 essay,
Lafayette, who had organized European support for the
American Revolution, came to France to promote a
republican evolution in France with Benjamin Franklin
and Thomas Paine. He was opposed, however, by
Marats mob, arrested after his flight from France, and
thrown in prison in Austria, where he was detained
between 1792 and 1797. His wife Adrienne was arrested,
and only narrowly escaped the guillotine. Thanks to the
help of the American government, she was able to obtain
her freedom again. Disguised, Adrienne journeyed to
Olmtz, where, according to the secret agreements
between London, Paris, and Vienna, Lafayette remained
in detention.
In 1795, Adrienne had discovered that British Prime
Minister William Pitt was responsible for the imprisonment of Lafayette. Bouilly depicted him later as Pizzaro, the villain in Leonore. Thanks only to an international press campaign about the fate of this republican
folk-hero, the Marquis de Lafayette; to the courage of his
wife; and to effective aid (passports); could Lafayette be
freed on Sept. 19, 1797.
On Feb. 19, 1798, the play Leonore, or Married Love
[Leonora, ou lamour conjugal] by Jean Nicolas Buoilly, set
to music by Pierre Gaveaux, was performed for the first
time in the Paris Theater Feydeau.
The visit in 1795 by Adrienne and her children to the
prison, using forged passports (which, among other
things, Andr Maurois describes in his biography of
Lafayette), is amazingly similar to the description of the
scene at the beginning of the second act of Fidelio:
They were led down a succession of long passages until
they reached two padlocked doors which gave access to
Lafayettes quarters. He had not been warned of their coming. He was still kept in solitary confinement. Not only
were there no letters delivered to him, but he was not even
told whether the members of his family were alive or dead.
The only news that reached him in this terrible solititude
was conveyed in a code song hummed to him by Felix Pon-

tonnier, his young secretary, who was put on a diet of bread

and water whenever he was caught in the act by the jailers.
After a great grinding of bolts, the door suddenly opened
and Lafayette saw before him his wife and his daughters.
What a shock and what happiness!
. . . He was little more than skin and bone. She had
not set eyes on him for four years. Although he was only
thirty-eight, he had aged beyond all belief. . . . He had difficulty in recognizing Adrienne in this gray-haired woman
with seamed face. [Andr Maurois, cited in Phau, p. 44]

Schillers Writings and

Beethovens Leonore

In his biography of Schiller, Benno von Wiese poses

the question:

In his youth, Beethoven had become quite familiar

with, and very engaged in, the intellectual life of the
time, through his cordial reception by the Breuning family. Schillers works, generally everything related to his
writings and poetry, were quite esteemed in this family
[see Schiedermair]. Upon Beethovens departure for
Vienna in 1792, his friends inscribed quotations from
Schiller in his album; his friend Klemmer wrote thus
from Don Carlos:

Wasnt a figure like the thirty-two-year-old Lafayette,

who, following the model of the American Declaration
of Independence, put forward to the National Assembly
on June 11, 1789, the blueprint for the rights of man, an
exact embodiment of the Schillerian Posa? [von Wiese,
p. 450]

They say to him, that he should bear respect for the dreams
of his youth when he becomes a man; [He] should not open
the heart of the tender flower of God, to the deadening
insect, of more honored common sensethat he will not
err, if inspiration, the daughter of heaven, blasphemes dusty
wisdom. [cited in Schiedermair]

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

In his answer, von Wiese alludes to Schillers disassoThese were the years of Schillers inspiration in
ciation from the later developments of the French RevoRhineland Bonn. Direct connections to Schiller were
lution, without, however, emphasizing Schillers clear
established through the jurist and university professor
preference for the Leibnizian ideas in the origins of the
Fischenish, with whom Schiller and his wife exchanged
American Revolution.
letters, in which Beethovens efforts to set Schillers Ode
In any case, however, Lafayettes fate was more on the
to Joy [Ode an die Freude] are also reported.
mind of Europes humanistsBeethoven among them
By this time, slightly altered lines of verse from
than people today suppose. Did this irritate the sensibiliSchillers Ode to Joy are again found in the finale of the
ties of the Vienna authorities?
original performance:
On Nov. 20, 1805, the origiWho has attained a noble wife
nal performance occurred
Join us in our jubilee!
under the title (not wanted by
Beethoven, incidentally) Fide(Schillers verse, Mingle in his
jubilee! [Mische seinen Jubel
lio, or Married Love, concerning
which Breuning wrote his sisein!], was later set to music
ter, Eleonore, a friend of
by Beethoven in the Ninth
Beethoven in her youth, the
Symphony.)
above-cited letter. On Nov. 13,
Thus, it appeared nothing
Vienna had been occupied by
but appropriate to Beethovens
Napoleons troops. On Dec. 2,
inner development, to find in
1805, the great battle of the
Stephan von Breuning the perthree Kaisers was fought at
son to collaborate in the
Austerlitz, at which Napoleon
improvement of the Leonore
was victorious over Austria and
material of 1805. (Remember,
Russia.
also, that Beethoven would have
As Breuning correctly
gladly assigned this work to a
reports, at that time Beethoven
not-so-outstanding poet like
wanted to make Leonore a sucBreuning. For, composing music
for great poetical works is more
cess through revisions of the
difficult, as Beethoven comimperfections in musical declamented while wrestling to set to
mation and dramatic developmusic the Ninth Symphony, or
ment. He retained Breuning to
The Marquis de Lafayette, the republican hero who
help in adapting the text.
inspired the character Florestan. the Fiesco and Wilhelm Tell pro23

jects. He formulated it as follows, in his well-known

comment before his pupil Czerny: Schillers poetical
works are extremely difficult to set to music. The composer must know how to raise himself far above the poet.
Who can do this with Schiller? In this respect, Goethe is
much easier.)

Schillers Death
In May 1805, at the time of the completion of the first
version of Leonore, Friedrich Schiller died.
There is probably no direct evidence of how
Beethoven reacted to Schillers death. Did Beethoven
have his eye on the Schillerian tragedies, particularly The
Virgin of Orleans [Die Jungfrau von Orleans], in the later
years of his work on the Leonore material? Beethoven
was obliged to employ precisely the image of woman
which Schiller portrays in Joan of Arc.
In the Fidelio 1814, for example, Beethoven had textually rewritten through the librettist Treitschke (or perhaps, in fact, even himself) Leonores key recitative, and
inserted, among other things, the metaphor of hope:
Thus a rainbow shines for me . . . .
In Act V of The Virgin of Orleans, Joan dies with the
words:
Do you behold the rainbow in the air?
The Heaven opens up its golden gates:
Ith choir of angels stands she gleaming there,
She holds th eternal Son upon her breast,
Her arms she smiling stretches out to me.
What comes oer meLight clouds are lifting me
The heavy armor does to winged garments turn.
UpwardupwardThe earth does backward flee
Brief is the pain, the joy shall be eterne!

In November 1813, Beethoven composed a canon on

this final verse, Brief is the pain . . . [Kurz ist der
Schmerz . . .] (WoO 163)that is, at the same time as
his revision of Fidelio.
Was not the ongoing revision of Leonore into Fidelio,
therefore, a dramatic realization of Schillerian ideas in a
sung work of art, which, admittedly, was conceived by
Beethoven as an opera (whose dramatic requirements he
was well equipped to handle), but which went beyond
the framework of all previous musical works for the
stage?
After all, hadnt Schiller called The Virgin of Orleans a
romantic tragedy, and in a letter to Gschen characterized the work thusly: This work flowed from the
heart, and was meant to speak to the heart as well
(Feb. 10, 1802). Beethoven inscribed this thought above
24

his Missa Solemnis.

During the period of the preparation of this work,
Schiller wrote:
Our tragedy, if we would have such, has to wrestle with
impotence, flabbiness, the lack of character of the spirit of
the time, and with a base way of thinking; it must, therefore, demonstrate strength and character; it must shake
the soul to elevate it, but not try to shatter it. [Letter to
Suevern]

This could have applied as an artistic guide to

Beethovens revision.

Schiller, Rochlitz, and

the Journal for German Women
Beethovens first mention of the fact that he was
working on Leonore occurred in a letter of Jan. 4, 1804, to
Friedrich Rochlitz in Leipzig.
Among other things, Beethoven sent him back an
opera libretto (Would that this material were not sorcery), and then Beethoven wrote: I have had an old
French script adapted for me quickly, and am beginning
now to work on it. The latter was Bouillys Leonore
libretto, translated into German by Sonnleithner.
In June 1801, Schiller wrote in a letter to Goethe, that
Rochlitz from Leipzig was with him: As he tells it,
you [Goethe] have encouraged him to thus compete for
the play prizes. He certainly has good intentions, but
lacks the abilities. Later on, Schiller came to a still critical, but favorable, view of Rochlitzs talent.
In addition, two more letters to Goethe mention
Rochlitz.
In November 1804, the publisher Gschen was on a
visit to Schiller and received from him the promise, that
he would participate in the new Journal for German
Women, written by German Women (Journal fr deutsche
Frauen, geschrieben von deutschen Frauen) as a kind of
patronmanaged by Wieland, Schiller, Rochlitz and
Seume. Even on April 24, 1805, two weeks before his
death, Schiller had wished him luck on the new launching of the Journal for Women.
That was only a few months before the premiere of
Leonore.
Therefore, at the moment when Schiller, as well as
Rochlitz and Seume, all of whom were esteemed by
Beethoven, wanted to participate in this Journal for
Women projectwas not perhaps the question of the
image of women in history, from Joan of Arc up to
Leonore-Fidelio, the substance of a dialogue amongst
them?

In the springtime of life, Fortune has flown from me!

The Shaping of Florestans Aria, from 1806 to 1814
1806 version
By shifting a few notes through
the new harmonic phrasing, and
through slight rhythmic touches,
the declamation and expression
grow in intensity (extension of
the high note at khn [boldly];
the highest note at Ketten
[chains]; the opening in Cf,
instead of a return to Ef major).

1814 version

(Reproduced by permission of
the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn,
Dr. Helga Lhning.)

On the Path to the High Musical

Work of Art
In 1827, a reviewer for the Munich Allgemeine MusikZeitung called Beethovens opera a high musical work of
art of the German school. [cited in Riethmller, inter
alia, p. 548]
A high musical work of artisnt this description
more accurate than todays rescue opera, opera of horrors, opera in the tradition of opera semiseria, etc.?
Beethovens labors on the path from Leonore to Fidelio
made possible the tightening of the dramatic tension,
sharpening of outline, differentiation of notes, of instrumentation, and of expression. Schillers essay, On the
Reason We Take Delight in Tragic Objects [ber den
Grund des Vergngens an tragischen Gegenstnden] formulates many principles which were obviously followed by
Beethoven in the artistic shaping. As a warning, Schiller
writes at the beginning: The well-intentioned aim, to
pursue the Moral everywhere as the highest end, which
already generated and took under protection so many
mediocrities in art, has also caused damage in theory.
And he continues, after a commentary on Morals:
The means through which art achieves its aim are as manifold as, in general, there are springs of free delight. However, I call free, that delight whereby the intellectual powers, reason and imagination, are active, and where feeling is
generated through an idea; [it is] the opposite of physical or

sensuous delight, whereby the soul is subject to a blind

necessity of nature, and feeling occurs directly through its
physical cause.

Schiller, then, would distinguish those arts, which are

concerned chiefly with the understanding and the power
of imagination (arts of taste), and those, which concern
chiefly reason and the power of imagination, therefore
having the Good, the Sublime, and the Pathetic as the
highest object (arts of the heart). Schiller then discusses
the phenomenon, that normally the Sublime strongly
contradicts sensuous thinking; indeed, causes listlessness
and annoyance: A Sublime object, precisely because it
clashes with sensuousness, is appropriate for Reason, and
delights through the higher capacity, while it pains
through the base capacity.
For the 1814 performance, Beethoven deleted a
Leonore-Marzelline duet: In order to live happily in
marriage, above all else, one must be true to himself,
and a trio of Rocco-Marzelline-Jacquino: A husband is
found in a short time; a man easily takes a wife; but after
the passing of time, regret can come quickly. Many see
in that, Beethovens surgical dramatic editingof course,
one should not criticize itto the detriment of the idyllic, or of the personal life of Marzelline, who, seeking
personal happiness, believes she perceives a beau, Fidelio,
in the disguised form of the young Leonore. It would be
very difficult today to emphasize the fully executed
25

heroic-utopian aspects of the Fidelio of 1814, say some

writers of music reviews. If one recalls Schillers reflections: could it be, that the reason why, today, more than
ever, people want to see Fidelio, is precisely that people
suffering under a privatist, personal life ethos that has
been driven to the extreme (but which, ironically, does
not fear to display the most intimate things on television!)seek the opposite in Beethovens drama? And
that Beethoven intensified, by tightening up the action of
the play, the artistic effect he was seeking to produce?
That mankind today seeks something, which can restore
a relation of reason to the important things in life, in
order to reestablish a splintered existence, the cruelly and
egotistically isolated soul, in fact, in respect to, as Schiller
formulates it, the purpose of mankindprogress.
As can be recognized from the chronology of the origin of particular segments from Leonore, Beethoven
changed the keystone arias of Leonore and Florestan

Beethoven, Mozart
On Married Love
Right: Beethoven jotted down excerpts
from Mozarts opera The Magic
Flute, at the time he was working on
Leonore. Below: The Mozart score,
whose text reads, For through it [the
love of man and wife] the happiness and
contentment of mankind is increased.
(Reproduced by permission of the
Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, Sammlung
H.C. Bodmer, authorized by Dr. Helga
Lhning.)

26

most of all, in the course of the revisions. For the Florestan aria alone, at least eighteen outlines and rough
drafts have been located. A great deal of effort flowed
into the conclusions of Acts I and II. (Of course, the
meaning and leading musical ideas of the four Overtures
in connection with the central developmental parts, the
motif arias of Florestan and Leonore, Pizarros aria, as
well as the development of the trumpet signal as the
turning of the tide in the drama, the righteous freeing of
the prisoners, are worth special examination.)
It is surprising that the famous canon, It is so wonderful for me [Mir ist so wunderbar], the dramatic
exposition of the four contracting parties, was composed
complete and unchanged from the very beginning:
MARZELLINE
It is so wonderful for me;
It quickens my heart;
He loves me, its clear,

I will be so happy.
LEONORE
How great is the danger,
How weak the light of hope;
She loves me, its clear,
O unspeakable torment!
ROCCO
She loves him, its clear,
Yes, maiden, he will be yours,
A good young couple,
They will be happy.
JAQUINO
My hair now stands on end,
Her father consents;
Its getting so wonderful for me,
I can think of no way out.

The latter is noteworthy, since, on the one hand, the

fixed canon forces together the four bargaining characters; on the other hand, the dissimilar character-sketches are presented contemplatively to the audience as the
point of departure at the beginning of the piece.

To Hope
Beethovens numerous developments, changes, enlargements, and condensations of both principal arias of
hope, the aria of Leonore in Act I, and the Florestan
aria in Act II, are particularly revealing in musical, as
well as textual-dramatic, hindsight. Dr. Helga Lhning
rightly emphasizes [see Riethmller, I and II], that
Beethoven, in both creative periods of the early Leonore
version of 1804/5 and the later Fidelio version of 1814,
had worked at the same time on composing music for
Tiedges To Hope [Das Lied an der Hoffnung], from
Tiedges Urania poems. Tiedge called this a lyrical
didactic poem in six songs. Beethoven completed his
first composition, Op. 32, in 1804/5, and his second composition, Op. 94, in spring 1815.
The sketches for Op. 32 are in the middle of the
Leonore Sketch-Book; the oldest records for Op. 94 have
been handed down in three pages which also contain a
brief notice for the Fidelio Overture, and underneath
that, the motif of the horns from the Allegro of the
Leonore aria. Near it are printed Leonores lines, Come,
Hope! Let not the last star of the weary be dimmed,
perhaps an imprint in speech of the common musical
metaphor which Beethoven had in mind in the 1804/5
and 1814/15 psychological shaping of this aria of Leonore
and his work on Tiedges verses. The textual changes
appeared as follows.
In the libretto of 1806, which Beethoven had
improved together with Stephan von Breuning, the fol-

lowing is found in Leonores key aria, following the

beginning, as recitative:
O! Break not yet you weak heart!
Days of horror you have endured,
With each hour new sorrow
And alarming fear.

And then the aria opens up:

Come, Hope! Let not the last star
Of the weary be dimmed!
Light their goal! Be it ever so far,
Love will reach it!
O you, for whom I endured all,
Would I could force my way to the place
Where wickedness cast you in chains,
And bring you sweet comfort
I follow my inner impulse,
I waver not,
The duty of true married love
Strengthens me!

As Lhning relates, Beethoven had requested that the

first librettist, Sonnleithner, supply an additional stanza
for the aria part; obviously, the musical idea through the
work by Beethoven with Tiedges poem was the right
metaphor for this strophic part, which was inserted at
this stage. A similar thing recurs in 1813/14.
In the revisions in 1813/14, Beethoven, together with
his third librettist, Treitschke, gives the following expression to this passage:
No. 9
Recitative
Horrible! Where do you hurry?
What do you intend in your wild rage?
The call of compassion, the voice of humanity,
(passionately) No longer touches your tiger instinct;
However fury and anger also rage
In your soul like ocean waves,
So a rainbow shines for me,
Which rests bright in the dark clouds,
That looks down so silently and peacefully;
That reflects former times again,
And my blood flows newly calm.
Aria
Come, Hope! Let not the last star
Of the weary be dimmed!
Light my goal, be it ever so far,
Love will reach it.
etc.

In the preliminary stage of Leonoreas Dr. Helga

Lhning points outBeethoven had worked on the song
setting of Tiedges To Hope (Op. 32), in which is found
the verse line: O Hope! Let the sufferer, having been
lifted up by you, divine that there above, an angel counts
27

his tears. Shortly after completing the composition of

Fidelio in 1814, Beethoven wrote a second version of this
song, which he introduces with the verse lines:
May a God exist?
May he fulfill in the future,
What longing tearfully hopes for?
May, before a Last Judgment occurs,
This enigmatic Being reveal His nature?
Man is made to hope!
He questions not!
What you celebrate on holy nights so gladly
etc.

May He fulfill in the future, what longing tearfully

hopes for?
Beethoven, after the personal crisis of 1802 (Heiligenstdter Testament), then worked on the Third Symphony, and the Appassionata and Waldstein sonatas; but,
also on the setting of the Gellert songs. In the Bulied
[Song of Atonement], Gellert No. 6, the resemblance to
the Recordare (measure 47ff) from Mozarts Requiem
can be noticeably detected. (It existed as a printed score
for the first time during this period in Vienna.)
The text inserted in the recitative, So a rainbow
shines for me, shows echoes of the last verse lines of Joan
in Schillers The Virgin of Orleans. Florestans An angel,
so like my wife Leonore, who leads me to freedom in the
heavenly realm, is stamped from the same coin.
As well, an impartial hearing of the 1803 projected
dramatic Oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives [Christus am lberg] (Op. 85), demonstrates new aspects of
Beethovens understanding of the God-like nature of
man, exactly in agreement with the later shaping of the
Florestan aria [SEE Beethovens Christ on the Mount of
Olives, this issue, p. 4].

The Prison Scene

In 1806, Beethoven composed the following scene. In the
stage directions, it is described: Florestan (alone). He sits
on a stone. Around his waist he has a long chain, whose end is
fastened to the wall.
Recitative
God! What darkness here! O dreadful silence!
Desolation surrounds me! I am the only living being here!
O onerous test!But Gods will is just!
I will not complain! For the measure of my suffering is in
your power!
Aria
In the springtime of life
Fortune has flown from me!
I dared to tell the truth boldly,
And chains are my reward.

28

I willingly bear all the sufferings,

And would end my journey in ignominy:
Sweet consolation in my heart:
I have done my duty.
(He pulls out a portrait from his bosom.)
Alas! Those were beautiful days,
When my gaze hung on yours,
When I embraced you
With a joyful beat of my heart!
May love soften your complaint,
Let you travel your way in peace;
Let it speak to your heart, and say:
Florestan has done what is right.
(He sinks onto the stone, his hands covering his face.)

In the revision of this prison scene, Treitschke redrafted, at Beethovens urging (or was it Beethoven himself
who did the redrafting?), the second stanza (Alas, those
were beautiful days . . .):
(In a rapture bordering on madness, yet peaceful)
Dont I feel gentle, soft, rustling air?
Doesnt my grave appear to me?
I see, what looks like an angel in a rosy glow,
Standing at my side taking comfort.
An angel, so like my wife, Leonore,
Who leads me to freedom in the Heavenly realm.
(He sinks down, exhausted from the extreme emotion, to the
stone seat, his hands covering his face.)

Doesnt this remind us of Joans vision?

Do you behold the rainbow in the air?
The Heaven opens up its golden gates:
Ith choir of angels stands she gleaming there,
She holds theternal Son upon her breast,
Her arms she smiling stretches out to me.
What comes oer meLight clouds are lifting me

Now, after countless draftsin the course of which

the introduction had already long been completed
Beethoven wrote the immense oboe solo in counterpoint
for this surpassingly beautiful tenor aria.
As the foreword to The Bride of Messina (The Bride of
Messina, or the Enemy Brothers. A Tragedy with Choruses)
[Die Braut von Messina oder Die feindlichen Brder. Ein
Trauerspiel mit Chren], Schiller wrote, On the Use of
the Chorus in Tragedy [ber den Gebrauch des Chores
in der Trgodie]. On this occasion, he discussed some
aspects of art which Beethoven certainly advocated in
many statements as his very own conception, as
Beethoven often used to quote to his circle of friends
from this work:
True art, however, did not aim merely at a passing performance; it is serious about not merely transporting man to a

Thus understood, art has

the power to move mankind,
since it isnt satisfied with the
semblance of truth, but
establishes its ideal structure
in the truth alone. The
changes in the Leonore and
Florestan arias demonstrate
Beethovens efforts to shape
more intelligibly the inner
processes of tension between
hopelessness, rage, resoluteness based on love, and freedom (By loving, I succeeded
in freeing you from chains
[Liebend ist es mir gelungen,
dich aus Ketten zu befrein]
Finale, 1814).
The revisions were by no
means easy for Beethoven.
Thus, he wrote in a letter to

the librettist Treitschke in March 1814:

I assure you, dear T., the opera would earn me the martyrs
crown, had you not put forth so much effort into it, and
adapted everything so well, for which I will forever be
grateful to you; I would scarcely have been able to bring
myself to do ityou have thereby salvaged a few remnants
that are still good from a ship run aground.

EIRNS/Christopher Lewis

momentary dream of freedom, but making him actually and

in fact free; in this way, it awakens, exercises, and develops in
him a power to remove the sensuous worldwhich otherwise only weighs upon us as a coarse substance; presses upon
us as a blind powerto an objective distance, to transform it
into a free work of our spirit, and to master the material
world through ideas.
For exactly that reason, because true art demands something honest and objective, it
cannot thus be satisfied with
merely the semblance of
truth; [it seeks] truth itself; in
the solid and deep foundation of Nature, it establishes
its ideal structure.

Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, St. Augustine Church, Paris.

Schillers treatment of Joan appears in the character Leonore.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Leonore oder der Triumph der ehelichen Liebe (Leonore, or the Triumph
of Married Love, Opera in Two Acts by Ludwig van Beethoven), ed.
by Helga Lhning (Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1996).
35. Beethovenfest, Das Buch zum Programm (35th Beethoven Festival,
Program Book) (Bonn: 1997).
Leonore und Fidelio, Dokumente aus den Sammlungen des BeethovenHauses (Leonore and Fidelio, Documents from the Collection of the
Beethoven-Haus. Catalogue), ed. by Helga Lhning (Bonn:
Beethoven-Haus, 1997).
BeethovenBriefwechsel, Gesamtausgabe (BeethovenCorrespondence,
Complete Edition), Vol. 3, ed. by Sieghard Brandenburg, under the
direction of the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn (Munich: 1996).
Beethoven, Interpretationen seiner Werke (Beethoven: Interpretations of
His Works), Parts I and II, ed. by Albrecht Riethmller, Carl
Dahlhaus, and Alexander L. Ringer (1994).
Ludwig Schiedermair, Der junge Beethoven (The Young Beethoven)

Leonore and Fidelio,

described here according to
Beethovens manner as
remnants from a ship run
aground, are indeed more
capable today than ever
before, of confronting people with the great questions
which stir and preserve
mankind. In particular, the
comparison of the authentic versions of 1806 and
1814, and the individual
studies of multiple revisions of the key dramatic
passages in Beethovens
own hand, make possible
an invaluable insight into
Beethovens creative process of composition
whose creative principle,
more than ever today, in
this world of Information
Age linear thinking, will
surely grow in importance.
translated by
Anita Gallagher

(1925).
Stephan Ley, Beethoven als Freund der Familie Wegeler-v. Breuning
(Beethoven as a Friend of the Wegeler-von Breuning Family) (Bonn:
Verlag Friedrich Cohen, 1927).
Schillers Smtliche Werke in zwlf Bnden (Schillers Collected Works, in
Twelve Volumes) (Stuttgart: Cotta Verlag, 1860).
Der Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe (The Correspondence
between Schiller and Goethe), ed. by Paul Stapf (Bonn, Darmstadt:
Tempel-Verlag, 1970).
Schillers Briefe in zwei Bnden (Schillers Letters, in Two Volumes) (Aufbau Verlag, 1982).
Peter Lahnstein, Schillers Leben (The Life of Schiller) (Munich: Paul
List Verlag, 1981).
Benno von Wiese, Friedrich Schiller (Stuttgart: J.P. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1978).
Donald Phau, Fidelio: Beethovens Celebration of the American Revolution, The Campaigner, August 1978 (Vol. 11, No. 6).

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