One of history’s pivotal composers, Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 15 or 16, 1770 in Bonn, and died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. Of the four overtures associated with his only opera, Fidelio (originally entitled Leonore), the Leonore Overture no. 3 was composed in 1805-6 for its first revision. Its first performance took place on 29 March 1806, in Vienna’s Theater an der Wien. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.
Leonore, ou L’amour conjugal is the title of a rescue drama written by the French playwright, Jean Nicolas Bouilly. The play would attract little attention nowadays were it not for the fact that Beethoven based his only opera, Fidelio (originally entitled Leonore), upon it. The play, originally set against the backdrop of the French revolution of 1789, is filled with the virtues of love, loyalty, and political freedom that were ever near and dear to the composer’s heart.
Fidelio exists in three versions, and Beethoven composed no fewer than four separate overtures for it. The original version was first produced in Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on November 20, 1805 under the worst possible circumstances. Beethoven not only had to deal with a weak libretto by Joseph Sonnleithner, but the soldiers of Napoleon’s Grand Army had occupied the Austrian capital only days earlier. The Viennese citizenry was too frightened to leave home to attend the theater and it should come as no surprise that the enterprise failed miserably.
The overture used for this earliest version of the opera is now known, strangely enough, as Leonore Overture no. 2. The Leonore Overture no. 1 was composed in 1806-7 for a projected performance of Fidelio in Prague. The performance never took place and this overture was never performed during Beethoven’s lifetime.
When Beethoven revised Fidelio in 1805-6, with improvements to the libretto provided by his friend Stephan von Breuning, he composed the Leonore Overture no. 3. This work has many elements in common with the opera’s original overture, now known as the Leonore Overutre no. 2—including off-stage trumpet calls—and it still was intended to be played before the opera begins. When Beethoven made his final revisions in 1814, he wrote an entirely new overture, known as the Fidelio Overture. This new overture, however, raised a dilemma for those conductors who wish to use the musically superior Leonore Overture no. 3 within the context of the opera. Some conductors play it at the beginning of Act II. Others have opted to place it at some point after the dungeon scene of Act II—the climactic moment when Leonore, disguised as the assistant jailer, Fidelio, rescues her unjustly imprisoned husband, Florestan, from murder at the hands of the evil and ambitious minister, Pizarro. The trouble with the first option is that the dramatic events of the scenes that follow become redundant. The problem with placing the overture after the rescue scene is that the overture loses its impact, the audience having already experienced the very events that the overture now exhibits in purely musical sounds. When performed as a concert piece, as it is on this program, however, none of these issues are of concern.
The overture’s introduction, after its suspenseful opening descriptive of Florestan’s dark subterranean prison cell, develops material derived from his introductory aria in Act II, “In des Lebens Frühlingstagen” (“In the Springtime of Life”), where the prisoner reflects on the justness of his cause and hope for liberation. Most of the music of the main body of the sonata-form overture is based upon material not used in the opera itself, but which captures its heroic spirit admirably. The trumpet calls that announce the arrival of the King’s minister in the opera are placed at the moment of greatest musical tension for a piece cast in sonata-form—near the end of the development section. After recapitulation, starting with the solo flute and bassoon, the musical energy ebbs in a moment filled with expectation. Starting with a burst of energy in the strings, the coda crowns the overture with a triumphant ending reflective of the victory of truth over tyranny, as well as Leonore’s bravery and faithfulness. The Leonore Overture no. 3 offers further confirmation of Beethoven’s genius as the unsurpassed master of dramatic expression through purely instrumental means.
Program Note by David B. Levy © 2012/2025