More News & Notes Leonore Overture No. 3
Ludwig van Beethoven
b. Bonn, Germany / December 15, 1770;
d. Vienna, Austria / March 26, 1827
The plot of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio (originally entitled Leonore), might be based on actual events from the “Reign of Terror” that followed the French Revolution (although the setting was changed to Spain). The faithful wife Leonore disguises herself as a boy, Fidelio, and frees her husband, Florestan, who has been imprisoned unjustly.
The opera’s difficult evolution resulted in Beethoven’s composing no less than four overtures to introduce it. The piece known as Leonore No. 2 was performed at the unsuccessful premiere in 1805. For the launch of a revised edition the following year, Beethoven replaced it with Leonore No. 3. It is based on the same themes as No. 2, but it treats them in even more concise and compelling fashion – to such a degree, in fact, that it nearly makes the opera itself redundant. Its most appropriate home is the concert hall, where it is free to assume its true nature as a symphonic poem in tribute to the emotional concerns of the opera: love, freedom and the unquenchable strength of the human spirit.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19
Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven arrived in Vienna at the end of 1792. He established his reputation there through his piano playing, and by composing solo works for his own performance. He also revised several existing creations, including this concerto. The earliest version may date back as far as 1788. He prepared a new edition in 1793, perhaps with the prospect of a performance, but the opportunity failed to materialize. Things came together two years later, at a charity concert in aid of the Society of Musicians. He played this work, but not before composing a new finale and revising the second movement. The great success he won that day placed him firmly in the spotlight.
His doubts about the concerto remained, however. He drafted a further version of the second movement, only to put it aside. In 1798, he revised the first and third movements, thus creating the final version that was published in 1801. Because it came into print nine months after the Concerto “No. 1” in C major that he had composed in 1795, it is known as “No. 2.”
Neither as distinguished nor individual as the later concertos, it is nevertheless a very appealing and well-crafted work. It opens with an arresting call to attention, followed by a vigorous first theme and a relaxed second. The slow movement is rather formal but still expressive, with a particularly poetic concluding section. The Finale is a bright, witty romp, with a cuckoo-like falling interval in the main rondo theme. The intervening episodes include a zesty minor-key excursion into Hungarian/Gypsy territory.
Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40
Richard Strauss
b. Munich, Germany / June 11, 1864
d. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany / September 8, 1949
In the sequence of Strauss’ tone poems, A Hero’s Life follows Don Quixote and precedes Symphonia Domestica. Unlike most of them, it is not based upon a specific source. A letter he wrote early in its creation reveals one of his intentions: “Since Beethoven’s Eroica is so unpopular with our conductors that it is hardly ever played, I am at present, in order to fill the gap, composing a major tone poem entitled A Hero’s Life (no funeral march but in E-flat and with plenty of horns, which are after all, the hallmark of heroism).”
Across its continuous, 40-minute span, this blockbuster score also takes stock of Strauss’ considerable achievements, especially the vast ingenuity and magnificent command of the orchestra which the 34-year-old composer/conductor already possessed. He directed the first performance himself, in Frankfurt on March 3, 1899.
Its creation came at the close of a century that witnessed an astonishing breadth of musical activity, stretching from the heyday of Haydn to the births of Gershwin, Poulenc and Copland. And where did music sit at the sunset of this fabulous era? Size mattered; bigger was better. From the same year as A Hero’s Life date such equally grandiose scores as Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Delius’ orchestral nocturne Paris: The Song of a Great City, and the First Symphonies of Scriabin and Sibelius.
The majority of these scores cling to an optimistic point of view. Darker forces were abroad, however. Over the ensuing years they insinuated themselves with gathering potency not only into music but into the world as a whole. Certain younger composers, such as Arnold Schoenberg, were growing weary of the old ways. They were looking for new methods of writing music, as well as relief from the sheer weight of the late-Romantic style. Schoenberg would utter one of Romanticism’s last gasps, in his colossal cantata Gurre-Lieder, premiered in 1913 after a dozen years’ work, before moving off on his own, distinct course.
The scourge of war continued to plague society. It was only a matter of time before conflict on an undreamt-of scale would be unleashed upon the world. Heroes of bygone eras had been one-dimensionally pure: bold, unselfish and just. Given recent developments, heroes at the close of the nineteenth century, though still essentially decent, were bound to be more worldly. Some of them were even given to thinking about what they did, and thus knew self-doubt. The flawed, fatalistic Siegfried and Tristan of Wagner’s operas reflect the times more closely than the dauntless, I-know-I’m-right Robin Hoods and Ivanhoes of earlier days.
So, too with the hero of Strauss’ tone poem. Through the medley of quotations from Strauss’ earlier compositions which follows the battle scene, he suggests that to some degree that he himself is the protagonist of A Hero’s Life. This might seem a gargantuan act of ego, but it seems likely that many composers have done something similar, but kept it to themselves. Besides, no one complains when an author writes an autobiography, or an artist paints a self-portrait, so why fuss when a composer does the same?
In a broader sense, Strauss presents himself as the embodiment of the innovative, individualistic artist, persecuted for daring to meddle with the established order. He knew this role intimately, having endured his share of critical roasting. In A Hero’s Life, he strikes back against such literary sticks-in-the-mud. In the second section, he gleefully portrays his critics (the ladies and gentlemen of the musical press) as squealing nincompoops. They sound especially ignoble in the wake of the opening, a swaggering, supremely confident portrait of the hero. After a lengthy rendezvous with his paramour (exquisitely embodied by solo violin), the hero takes to the field to trounce his adversaries and their backward-looking ideas. Strauss kicks his colossal orchestra into high gear, with quadruple winds, eight horns, five trumpets and tenor tuba leading the charge.
But once the hero’s foes are vanquished, he is beset by misgivings. Being also a thinker and a man of peace, he does not seek further battles. Instead he withdraws from the world, in marked contrast to the generally aggressive political spirit of Strauss’ times. This hero’s life concludes not with a final showdown, weapon in hand, but with vast, rolling washes of soothing, contented beauty.
© 2006 Don Anderson. All rights reserved.