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Fidelio in Full Score

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Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio is a unique, enduring masterpiece of loyalty, unselfish love, and the human spirit — the story of the faithful Leonora who risks everything to free her husband, Florestan, from unjust imprisonment. Though the plot line and the form of the libretto are far from unique, Beethoven — after a decade of unceasing revision — was able to rise above the limitations of the material and infuse it with transcendent nobility.
"Of all my children," the composer said, "this is the one that cost me with worst birth pangs . . . and for that reason it is the one most dear to me." Audiences and musicians have long shared Beethoven's sentiments, making Fidelio one of the most performed, most studied, most recorded operas of all time.
This reliable edition from Dover reproduces the full orchestral and vocal score, with ample space in the margins for analytical notation. In one sturdily bound, inexpensive volume, here is Beethoven's genius for orchestration combined with the drama of the human voice in choruses, duets, emotion-filled arias, and an intense finale.
More than anything else, the idealistic themes of the opera — justice, freedom, heroism, love — inspired Beethoven to transcend the libretto and forge a musical structure that far surpasses the literary foundation on which it is built. Whether in a humorous aria, such as "Hat man auch nicht Geld beineben," or a glorious four-part canon, such as "Mir ist so wunderbar," the music carries the words to a plane far beyond themselves.
Reprinted in its entirety from the authoritative C. F. Peters edition, this faithful edition of the well-loved Fidelio will delight music lovers, opera enthusiasts, Beethoven devotees, teachers, and students — not least of all for its remarkably affordable price.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1805

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About the author

Ludwig van Beethoven

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From classical composition, well-known musical works of Ludwig van Beethoven, a partially and then totally deaf German, include symphonies, concertos, sonatas, string quartets, Masses, and one opera and form a transition to romanticism.

Ludwig van Beethoven lived of the period between the late and early eras. A mother in Bonn bore him.

People widely regard Ludwig van Beethoven as one greatest master of construction; sometimes sketched the architecture of a movement and afterward decided upon the subject matter. He first systematically and consistently used interlocking thematic devices or “germ-motives” to achieve long unity between movements. He equally remarkably used many different “source-motives”, which recurred and lent some unity to his life. He touched and made almost every innovation. For example, he diversified and even crystallized, made and brought the more elastic, spacious, and closer rondo. The natural course mostly inspired him, and liked to write descriptive songs.

Ludwig van Beethoven excelled in a great variety of genres, piano, other instrumental for violin, other chamber, and lieder.

People usually divide career of Ludwig van Beethoven into early, middle, and late periods.

In the early period, he is seen as emulating his great predecessors Haydn and Mozart, while concurrently exploring new directions and gradually expanding the scope and ambition of his work. Some important pieces from the Early period are the first and second, the first six, the first three piano, and the first twenty piano, the famous “Pathétique” and “Moonlight."

The Middle (Heroic) period began shortly after Beethoven’s personal crisis centering around his encroaching. The period is noted for large-scale expressing heroism and struggle; these many of the most famous. Middle period six (numbers 3 to 8), the fourth and fifth piano, the triple and violin, five (numbers 7 to 11), the next seven piano (the “Waldstein” and the “Appassionata”), and Beethoven’s only Fidelio.

Beethoven’s Late period began around 1816. The Late-period are characterized by intellectual depth, intense and highly personal expression, and formal innovation (for example, the Op. 131 has seven linked movements, and the Ninth Symphony adds choral forces to the orchestra in the last movement). Many people in his time period do not think these measured up to his first few, and his with J. Reinhold were frowned upon. Of this period also the Missa Solemnis, the last five, and the last five piano.

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