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Rating: Alright, he's a genius... no one can doubt that. You might like him or not, but you certainly can't say that the great Ludovico wasn't one of the most significant figures of what is called "romantic" classical music. Now, like many other greats, he too thinks of writing the music for an opera. And he does it with great style and elegance, as well as with an unusual expressive power for the era (we're talking about the early 1800s), while following the tracks of the Austrian opera. In fact, "Fidelio" (Op. 72b) is a "sung play" in two acts with a libretto by Joseph Sonnleithner and Georg Friedrich Treitschke. At the time, it was a highly appreciated genre, mainly emerging in Austria, characterized by the alternation of spoken and sung parts. Unlike the Italian opera, which involves sung recitatives, in the sung play the recitatives are therefore spoken, in German, as if it were a theatrical "piece" in pose. And this creates quite a few problems for those who have to set this type of work to music. But Ludovico is certainly not one to back down. And so, he takes the opera's libretto and creates one of his best overtures. In fact, he produces four versions, but only the third completely satisfies him, although he then replaces it with the fourth, concise and brilliant, because the third was really of abnormal dimensions for an operatic overture, such that it became an independent orchestral piece of shocking beauty, precisely because it was free from the "constraints" of the sung play.
The first performance was given on November 20, 1805, at the Vienna Theater conducted by Ignaz von Seyfred.
The overture, preceded by a slow and enveloping introduction, opens with a timpani stroke, followed by a slow diminuendo that leads into an extremely complex Adagio, because it features one of the most fascinating characteristics of the page, that of not focusing on strongly marked and defined themes, but on ones that emerge and fade in dissolves, in a play of pursuits and expansions that always seems to delay a clear and definitive thematic affirmation. Still in the introduction, there's a splendid theme played by the woodwinds, which is that of Florestano's aria, the prisoner in the dungeon, at the start of the second act. Then, flute and violins splendidly pursue each other, contrasted by an imposing orchestral choir.
And here comes the Allegro, impetuous and rhythmic, we might say syncopated, which sweeps away the extremely pensive atmosphere of the introduction and is repeated with dramatic and exhilarating emphasis by the entire orchestra. The diversion in the rhythmic textures caused by the return of the elements of the first theme is carried by the horns, lyrical and ascending. And still, the syncopation of the first theme provides an impressive base for the entire development, which is interrupted twice in quick succession by a trumpet fanfare in the distance; it's the fanfare that, in the opera, announces the arrival of the minister and thus the sudden resolution of the story. The syncopated theme is resumed and comes back to the forefront again in a more sculpted way. The return of Florestano's aria theme, already heard in the slow introduction, surprises us because we expected a more classic closure. And here lies the greatness of Ludovico... using the classicism of the time and re-proposing, reinterpreting it in a way that will, in time, become his best musical "weapon." And here is the coda, which constitutes a final reprise of the swirling and syncopated theme, this time finally affirmed in its fullness that was until then only suggested but never concluded. The symphonic and triumphant closing leaves no doubt about the meaning to be attributed to the page; that of a measured and excellent journey, from imprisonment to freedom, through subterranean impulses, often denied, that only in the finale finally find release.
Unmissable
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