Breuning’s statement is improbable. Who were Beethoven’s enemies? Who formed the cabal? Baron Braun, Schikaneder, Seyfried, the Stage-manager Meier, Director Clement, the solo singers (Mlle. Milder, Weinkopf, Röckel), were all his friends; and, for anything now known, so were Mlle. Müller, Rothe and Caché. As to orchestra and chorus, they might refuse to play under Beethoven as conductor--nothing more; and, as he had already conducted four if not five times, this would create no great difficulty, as the baton would necessarily pass into the hands of Seyfried at the first or second subsequent performance. Moreover, now that the opera was fairly upon the stage and making its way, it was for the interest of all parties, from Baron Braun down to the scene-shifters, to continue it so long as it would draw an audience. That it was making its way is proved not only by all the contemporary accounts, but by this: that notwithstanding the necessarily empty houses in November, Beethoven’s percentage of the receipts finally amounted to nearly 200 florins. [Sidenote: THE COMPOSER IN A RAGE] In the second of the notes to Meier, Beethoven is guilty of monstrous injustice. A moment’s reflection shows this. The orchestra and chorus had duly rehearsed and three times publicly performed “Fidelio” as first written. Since then (see Jahn’s edition) most of the numbers, perhaps every one, had been more or less changed. Now every musician knows that it is easier to play a piece of new music correctly at sight, than a well-known composition in which material alterations have been made. And yet, because some forty men--playing on a dozen different instruments, and after a single rehearsal at which the composer was not present to explain his intentions--did not effect the impossibility of reading the music correctly and at the same time note all the marks of expression, Beethoven writes: “I cannot think otherwise than that is done purposely!” All things considered, there can be no hesitation in preferring the testimony of the singer of ~Florestan~, to that of the Court War Councillor.