Two doubts

[chopithoven]

1- How many Bagatelles Op.119 are there, eleven or twelve? In most places I've read they're eleven, but I have a list of Beethoven's work which says there is a Bagatelle Op.119/12 in G. Is this correct?
2- The overture known as Leonore No.2 is the same as the overture to Fidelio? In case not, is one of the "Leonore" overtures the same as the overture to Fidelio? In case not, there should be three "Leonore" overtures and one Fidelio overture completeley independent from them, right?

[This message has been edited by chopithoven (edited November 25, 2002).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by chopithoven:
1- How Bagatelles Op.119 are there, eleven or twelve? In most places I've read they're eleven, but I have a list of Beethoven's work which says there is a Bagatelle Op.119/12 in G. Is this correct?
2- The overture known as Leonore No.2 is the same as the overture to Fidelio? In case not, is one of the "Leonore" overtures the same as the overture to Fidelio? In case not, there should be three "Leonore" overtures and one Fidelio overture completeley independent from them, right?

Op119 has 11 numbers. I think in some editions a 12th did exist but the piece did not belong to B's original intented group.

Leonore has 3 overtures written in the following order: no2 first, no3 second, no1 third. Only Leonore's no 2 and no3 have a musical connection with each other, and the Fidelio overture is also totally independent.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited November 25, 2002).]

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
Op119 has 11 numbers. I think in some editions a 12th did exist but the piece did not belong to B's original intented group.

Leonore has 3 overtures written in the following order: no2 first, no3 second, no1 third. Only Leonore's no 2 and no3 have a musical connection with each other, and the Fidelio overture is also totally independent.

The number of overtures are evidence of the
care and tribulation this opera caused the composer, with hardly any recompense. This is why Beethoven wrote only one opera, a fact to be much regretted.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
The number of overtures are evidence of the
care and tribulation this opera caused the composer, with hardly any recompense. This is why Beethoven wrote only one opera, a fact to be much regretted.

True, but in compensation the one opera that Beethoven finally presented us with what happens to be the greatest of all operas.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin


[This message has been edited by Rod (edited November 27, 2002).]

[Michael]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chopithoven:
[B]1- How Bagatelles Op.119 are there, eleven or twelve? In most places I've read they're eleven, but I have a list of Beethoven's work which says there is a Bagatelle Op.119/12 in G. Is this correct?


An interesting thing about Op. 119 is that it is actually two separate sets of Bagatelles, numbers 1 to 6 and 7 to 11. And the second part was assembled first!
In 1820, a friend of Beethoven's, Friedrich Starke, asked him for a contribution for a piano method that Starke was preparing. B wrote the five bagatelles (Op. 119 Nos. 7-11) and presented them to Starke on New Year's Day 1821.
The following year, a publisher, Peters, asked B for some works and B produced a set of six (Op. 119 Nos. 1-6) of which the first five had been written many years earlier. B touched those up in various ways - mostly adjusting the endings to suit the piece to follow. The sixth of these was newly written.
Peters, refused to publish the set of six (hard to believe!) and instead they were issued by Clementi, alongside the five written for Starke, to make a collection of eleven pieces.

Michael

[Joy]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
The number of overtures are evidence of the
care and tribulation this opera caused the composer, with hardly any recompense. This is why Beethoven wrote only one opera, a fact to be much regretted.

I agree, it was a tribulation. Isn't this the occasion where Beethoven said, "Of all my 'children' this one has caused me the greatest birth pangs'. (Or words to that effect).

[chopithoven]

Thanks to everyone.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Michael:

..Peters, refused to publish the set of six (hard to believe!) and instead they were issued by Clementi, alongside the five written for Starke, to make a collection of eleven pieces.

Michael

[/b]

I knew that some of these pieces were written earlier and then 'amended', but are you saying that the form in which they were finally published (the two sets grouped) was done without B's approval?

Rod

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited November 26, 2002).]

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Joy:
I agree, it was a tribulation. Isn't this the occasion where Beethoven said, "Of all my 'children' this one has caused me the greatest birth pangs'. (Or words to that effect).

Yes.

[Michael]

Originally posted by Rod:
I knew that some of these pieces were written earlier and then 'amended', but are you saying that the form in which they were finally published (the two sets grouped) was done without B's approval?

Rod

Good question. I had to look up Thayer for the answer, which is that B got so thoroughly pissed off over the Bagatelles that he was glad to get them published at all!
Peters returned the six to B in March 1823 - with the remark that they were not worth the asking price, and that B shouldn't waste his time on such trifles! This aggrieved B, according to Schindler - surely the understatement of all time - and B then sent the whole eleven to Ries in London with instructions to "sell them as best he could". In May they were offered to Lissner in St. Petersburg. Thayer (or Forbes) doesn't say what Lissner's reaction was but at the end of 1823 they were published by Clementi in London and Schlesinger in Paris with the original opus number of 112. They didn't come out in Vienna until April 1824.
The opus number 119 appears to have been assigned to the set after an agreement had been reached with Steiner concerning the works now numbered 112 to 118.
Michael

[Rod]

Originally posted by Michael:
Good question. I had to look up Thayer for the answer, which is that B got so thoroughly pissed off over the Bagatelles that he was glad to get them published at all!

I looked at the same info in Thayer last night myself! The fact that B sent '11' to Ries answers the question, but it does not clarify the issue of the ordering of the numbers.

the '12th' Bagatelle was adapted from an early song 'An Laura' and published in a later edition as the final number.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin



[This message has been edited by Rod (edited November 27, 2002).]