The story on which the opera is founded (originally taken from the French, and so well known as to require no repetition here) is almost too slight for dramatic purposes, inasmuch as there is but one really powerful situation--that of the grave scene--in the entire piece, and the whole interest, therefore, is concentrated on the one figure, Leonora. What Beethoven has made out of these slender materials; how he has depicted, in all its intensity and tenderness, that love which he was doomed never to experience, needs no description from us. What was Beethoven's object in choosing this theme for his labours? Was it a foreshadowing of bliss that might be his? or was it the delineation of a character which, in its earnestness and purity, should be the reverse of that "Don Juan" of Mozart, of which he once said, "The divine art ought never to be lowered to the folly of such a scandalous subject"? The little byplay and domestic "asides" cost our soaring Beethoven infinitely more trouble than the most impassioned scenas, and he was obliged to write the little air of Marcelline, "O, wär' ich schon mit Dir vereint," no less than thrice before he could attain the requisite lightness. The composition of the four "Leonora" overtures is without a parallel in musical annals. When Beethoven had finished No. 1, in C major, he consented to its being first tried over by a small orchestra at Prince Lichnowski's, in the presence of a select number of critics and connoisseurs, by whom it was condemned as being light and almost flimsy in structure, and as affording no clue to the contents of the opera. It was therefore withdrawn, and not published till after the composer's death. But may not the light-heartedness which distinguishes this overture have been intentional on the part of Beethoven? may he not have wished to represent his heroine before the shadow of grief had fallen upon her, in the enjoyment of the highest wedded bliss? Marx takes this view of "Leonora" No. 1, adducing in support of it the following extract from one of the manuscript books in which Beethoven was accustomed to hold intercourse with his friends:-- "Aristotle, when he speaks of tragedy, says that the hero ought first to be represented as living in the greatest happiness and splendour. Thus we see him in 'Egmont.' When he is in the enjoyment of felicity, Fate comes and throws a noose over his head from which he is not able to extricate himself. Courage and Defiance appear upon the scene, and boldly look Destiny--aye, and death--in the face. Clärchen's fate interests us, like that of Gretchen in 'Faust,' because she was once so happy. A tragedy which begins as well as continues gloomily, is tedious." "Leonora" No. 2 was condemned on account of the predominance of the wind instruments, and No. 3 ultimately, because the stringed instruments had so much to do that precision was out of the question.