A tease for this week's post: "Fidelio by the numbers: How do Three Great Moments in Act II go into four overtures?"

by Ken

This has been nuts. All week I've been trying to figure out what we can cover in a single post -- not only which elements but what would go into them -- and subconstructing the modules, to the point where there are pieces of the thing all over the damned place, all of them still works in progress that not only have had to be completed individually but at some point in some way fitted together.

So while I've had lots of musical bits and pieces I thought of as candidates for "pre-posting" or "tease-posting," I really couldn't think of one that would make sene on its own.

At a certain point, though, to heck with sense! I actually know (sort of) where this little module is going to fit into the actual post, but I think it will stand well enough on its own. As everyone knows, we have a total of four overtures that Beethoven wrote for his only opera, at one point intending each to raise the curtain on it. I think it's well settled that the overture we know as Leonore No. 1 was never actually performed as part of the opera (and presumably not performed in Beethoven's lifetime?), that Leonore No. 2 was the overture for the highly unsuccessful 1805 premiere, and Leonore No. 3 was popped into its place the following year for the heavily revised and even less successful version. The version of the opera we know didn't come into existence until 1814, at which point the reordering of Act I required an overture in a different key from the previous efforts, and for that occasion Beethoven produced the overture we know as the Overture to Fidelio.


THAT SAID, WHY DON'T WE LISTEN TO THE FOURSOME?

Eventually we're going to hear more of them, from different angles and with different emphases. For now, I like the idea of hearing them on a more or less level playing field. They're all swell pieces, and I think they make for an agreeable "suite" of overtures. That said, two of these overtures I utterly adore; they're prime Beethoven, and it doesn't get any primer. They're suitable for pleasurable listening pleasure under most any circumstances.

The other two, well, they're a different story, and I wonder whether other listeners have the same experience. For my ears, the "other two" really are best listened to as part of the full set of four. Obviously this is strictly my reaction. Then again, it's based on a lot of years of listening to these pieces.

Back in England, Sir Colin Davis (1927-2013) conducted at the 2011 Proms.

In the main post I'm going to have other suggestions of things to listen for, but for now this might be worth keeping in mind as you listen to these eminently sturdy performances by a perhaps unexpected chief, Sir Colin Davis, who we should recall actually was chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphohy Orchestra from 1983 to 1992, in succession to the two conductors probably most closely associated with it: founding conductor Eugen Jochum (1949-60) and his successor, Rafael Kubelik (1961-79). A historical note on the BRSO website points out that Kubelik "still conducted the BRSO as a guest until 1985." Most recently, the distinguished Latvian conductor Mariss Jansons seved as chief conductor from 2003 until his death in December 2019, a heavy blow for the orchestra.

Through it all I've come to think of the BRSO, for all the internationalizing it has undergone in recent decades, as maybe the "most German" of German orchestras, and certainly a fine one for our immediate purposes. One last preliminary caution: This seemingly simple, straightforward little presentation of our set of four overtures some major temporal anomalies -- in fact two quite different sorts. We'll get that sorted out in the main post too.

Perhaps I should say for the record, and for the benefit of newer readers, that Colin Davis wasn't a favorite conductor of mine beyond an early-career period of youthful openness and curiosity. (I've mentioned, for example, my enduring fondness for his early EMI LP of Mozart overtures.) How on earth did he get a reputation as a Berlioz conductor, of all things? All the same, for someone one might have pegged as exactly abrim with imagination, he could confound you in utterly unexpected repertory with performances of real flair.

THE FOUR OVERTURES FOR FIDELIO

Leonore Overture No. 1, Op. 138

Leonore Overture No. 2, Op. 72a

Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72b

Fidelio Overture,  Op. 72c

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis, cond.

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