MusiLLection

The music in the Egmont overture  is full of dynamism and melancholy, foremoing the story that will follow. This scene of the storm on Karl Anton Paul Lotz's painting "Horses in a Rainstorm" (1862) reflects the feelings depicted in the work. Beethoven responded enthusiastically to the invitation of Vienna’s Burg Theatre to write the music of Egmont , a tragedy of the great German poet Goethe. He was pleased with this assignment for two reasons. First, because he deeply respected Goethe, and then the subject of the drama was very suited to the composer. In Goethe's story, Count Egmont - a 16th century nobleman -  of the Low Countries leads a revolution against Spanish rule to be defeated by the Duke of Alba, suppressor of the revolution. Beethoven's stage music, written in 1810, consists of an introduction, entr' actes (music that connects the acts of drama) and songs. Beethoven's musical interpretation of Goethe's tragedy begins with a series of rivet...

Beethoven's only opera "Fidelio" - the myth of a political prisoner, Florestan, saved by his wife Leonore - had a complicated history. The premiere of the opera was given in Vienna in 1805 (the same time as the Heroic Symphony), entitled Leonore. Beethoven then revised the play and presented the opera again the following year, but soon withdrew this new form. For these first versions, as well as for another project that never materialized, he composed the overtures Leonore no. 1, 2 and 3. In 1814, Beethoven revised the opera again, changing its structure from three to two acts and including this new introduction. The opera was presented in its final form under the title Fidelio and was particularly successful. Compared to the earlier versions of Leonora No. 3, a work of symphonic dimensions and high drama, Fidelio's Overture is a more accurate and more "professional" work. It begins with the full orchestra interpreting one of these powerful lyre little ...