A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their MusicKrehbiel, Henry Edward
History
A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music
Krehbiel, Henry Edward
Operas -- Stories, plots, etc.
2 and 3 being practically
the same, careless listeners may easily confound one with the other.
Nevertheless, the differences between the two works are many and
great, and a deep insight into the workings of Beethoven's mind
would be vouchsafed students if they were brought into juxtaposition
in the concert-room. The reason commonly given for the revision of
No. 2 (the real No. 1) is that at the performance it was found that
some of the passages for wind instruments troubled the players; but
among the changes made by Beethoven, all of which tend to heighten
the intensity of the overture which presents the drama in nuce
may be mentioned the elision of a recurrence to material drawn
from his principal theme between the two trumpet-calls, and the
abridgment of the development or free fantasia portion. Finally, it
may be stated that though the "Fidelio" overture was written for the
revival of 1814, it was not heard at the first performance in that
year. It was not ready, and the overture to "The Ruins of Athens"
was played in its stead.
Footnotes:
{1} As the opera is performed nowadays it is in three acts, but this
division is the work of stage managers or directors who treat each
of the three scenes as an act. At the Metropolitan Opera House, in
New York, Mr. Mahler introduced a division of the first scene into
two for what can be said to be merely picturesque effect, since the
division is not demanded by the dramatic situation.
{2} In Mr. Mahler's arrangement this march becomes entr'acte music
to permit of a change of scene from the interior of the jailer's
lodge to the courtyard of the prison prescribed in the book.
CHAPTER VI
"FAUST"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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