Urtext virgin territory: the Fidelio Overture

Now that the urtext performance parts to the "Coriolan," "Egmont" and "Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus" Overtures are available (in cooperation with the G. Henle-Verlag), the publishing project "Ludwig van Beethoven: The Five Great Overtures" comes to a close in spring 2007 with the two major Fidelio overtures.

The project is also entering "virgin territory" as far as the works are concerned. To this day, the two major Fidelio overtures are still performed from music texts that go back to the imprecise and corrupted first editions of the parts. In the meantime, however, the state of the sources for both works has significantly improved through many new findings.

For the new "Fidelio" Overture, which was written at lightning speed in 1814 for the reprise of the opera (and was performed with a slight delay), there is a copy of the score in the Austrian National Library which offers a reliable basis for a new, text-critical edition. This manuscript, in which one finds countless indications of corrections and completions in Beethoven's hand, is the only extant source that was examined by the composer himself.