In truth, Beethoven had overshot the mark. The overture was too novel in form and grand in substance to be immediately understood; and, in 1806, there was not an audience in Europe able to find, in the fire and expression of the principal vocal numbers, an adequate compensation for the superficial graces and melodic beauties of the favorite operas of the time, and which seemed to them to be wanting in “Fidelio.” Even Cherubini, who was all this time in Vienna, failed to comprehend fully a work which, though a first and only experiment, was destined to an ever-increasing popularity, when nearly all his own then universally admired operas had disappeared from the stage. Schindler records that he “told the musicians of Paris concerning the overture that because of its confusion of modulations he was unable to recognize the principal key.” And farther, that he (Cherubini), in listening to “Fidelio,” had come to the conclusion that till then Beethoven had paid too little heed to the art of singing, for which Salieri was not to blame. In 1836, Schindler conversed with the ~Fidelio~ of 1805-06, Madame Milder-Hauptmann, on the subject: “She said, among other things, that she, too, had had severe struggles with the master chiefly about the unbeautiful, unsingable passages, unsuited to her voice, in the Adagio of the air in E major--but all in vain, until, in 1814, she declared that she would never sing the air again in its then shape. That worked.” Anselm Hüttenbrenner, who became a pupil of Salieri a dozen years later, wrote in a letter to Ferdinand Luib, under date February 21, 1858: “Speaking of Beethoven Salieri told me the composer had submitted ‘Fidelio’ to him for an opinion: he had taken exception to many things and advised Beethoven to make certain changes; but Beethoven had ‘Fidelio’ performed just as he had written it--and never visited Salieri again.” These last words are too strong; Beethoven’s pique against his old master was in time forgotten; for Moscheles (also in a letter to Luib) writes on February 28, 1858: “I cannot recall seeing Schubert at Salieri’s, but I do remember the interesting circumstance that once I saw a sheet of paper lying at Salieri’s on which in great letters written by Beethoven were the words: ‘~The pupil Beethoven was here!~’” A letter by Beethoven to Baron von Braun refers to the incidents just described and asks permission to get from the theatre orchestral parts, as follows: ~Flauto primo~, the three trombones and the four horn parts of my opera. I need these parts, but only for a day, in order to have a few trifles copied for myself which ~could not be written into the score for want of room~, also because ~Prince Lobkowitz~ thinks ~of giving the opera at his house~ and has asked it of me.