Beethoven, Ludwig van

to Baron Peter von Braun, the manager of the Court Opera Houses in Vienna, about preparations for performing parts of Fidelio at Palais Lobkowitz, asking to have certain manuscript instrumental parts handed back to him from the theatre archives, so that he can have some corrections contained there copied into his full score, explaining that Prince Lobkowitz intends to have the opera performed and needs the music;  Beethoven asks Braun to be so kind as to write a few words authorizing the Archives of the Theater auf der Wieden to let him have these parts: namely, the first flute part, the three trombones, and the four horns, adding that he is not feeling well, or else he would have come to visit him in person

...Ich bitte Sie...nur ein Paar Worte... worin sie mir die Erlaubniß ertheilen, daß ich folgende Stimmen: nemlich: flauto primo, die 3 posaunen, und die vier Horn-Stimmen von meinem oper der Theater-Kanzley von der Wieden kann holen laßen.  Ich brauche diese Stimmen mir auf einen einzigen Tag, um diejenigen Kleinigkeiten für mich abschreiben zu laßen, welche sich des Raums wegen nicht in die partitur eintragen ließen zum Theil auch, weil fürst Lobkowitz einmal gedenkt die oper bey sich zu geben...



at the foot of the first page, Beethoven again lists the parts he needs: "flauto primo, die drej Trombonen, die vier Horn-stimmen"



2 pages, 4to (22.2 x 18.8cm), a bifolio, watermark ("C. & I. Honig"), written and signed in gothic script, integral autograph address-panel, annotated at the end by Braun "Ist auszufolgen Br." [ie, "to be delivered"], and by another hand on the address-leaf "Fidelio", note of receipt ("den 5^te May 1806 verabfolgt"), 5 May 1806, remains of red seal with Beethoven's monogram, [Vienna, on or just before 5 May 1806],  2 small seal-tears and old repair to address leaf

Brandenburg 251; Anderson 131.

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FINE AND RARE.  This handsome letter relates to one of Beethoven's greatest works, his only opera, Fidelio.  Few letters survive from Beethoven's middle period (Anderson prints only ten from 1806, fewer than for any other year that decade) and those dealing with the first version of Fidelio (originally called "Leonore") are RARE.

Beethoven composed Fidelio in 1804 and it was first performed at the Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805.  Prince Lichnowsky arranged for a second run, resulting in two further performances of an abridged version on 29 March and 10 April 1806.   According to the story that Joseph Röckel (the Florestan in 1806) gave Beethoven's biographer A.W. Thayer in 1861, a furious row broke out between Braun and Beethoven, where the composer denounced Braun's business practices and took back the score of his opera.   However the theatre still retained the playing parts, which included some alterations that Beethoven had made to the flute, horn and trombone parts during rehearsals, which he had not transferred to his autograph score.  He now needed to refer to these corrections for a projected performance at Lichnowsky's palace, hence the placatory tone of his only surviving letter to Braun.  Some arias from the opera were finally given in a subscription concert at the Palais Lobkowitz in March 1807.

The composer's preferred name for the opera was "Leonore", and he had the 1806 libretto printed with that title at his own expense; however it is clearly identified as "Fidelio" in an annotation to the address-leaf of the present letter.  Braun insisted on this title to avoid any confusion with two other Leonore operas by Gaveaux and Paër.  Braun (1758-1819) had been director and lease-holder of both Court Opera Houses since 1794 and had, in addition, acquired ownership of the Theater an der Wien (where Fidelio was staged) in 1804.  Wide-spread dissatisfaction with Braun's management of the Viennese theatres lead to him relinquishing all such posts later in 1806.