More another day; do not remit the money for the whole together till you receive advice from me that the work is ready to be sent off. I must conclude. I hope that your vexation is now at least somewhat abated.
Your friend,
BEETHOVEN.
No. II.
Letter on the first appearance of Beethoven's Fidelio.
Hofrath Breuning to Dr. and Madame Wegeler.
Vienna, June 2, 1806.
Dear Sister and dear Wegeler,
* * * * * *
As far as I remember, I promised in my last letter to write to you about Beethoven's Opera Fidelio. I know how interested you are about it, and I will fulfil my promise. The music is among the finest and most perfect that can be heard; the subject interesting—for it represents the liberation of a captive through his faithful and intrepid wife; but, in spite of all this, no work has occasioned Beethoven more trouble than this, and posterity alone will know how to value it. In the first place, it was given at a most unfavourable period—seven days after the entry of the French troops. The theatres were necessarily empty; and Beethoven, who at the same time found fault with some arrangement in the libretto, withdrew it after the third representation. Peace having been restored, he and I took it up again. I altered the whole of the libretto for him, which made it act better, less tiresomely, and quicker; and it was then given three times, with the greatest applause. Then his enemies about the theatre rose, and he, having given offence to many, particularly at the second representation, they have succeeded in preventing the further appearance of the work on the stage. Many difficulties had ere this been put in his way—one instance will suffice. He could not, at the second representation, obtain the reprinting of the bills with the altered title of Fidelio, so named in the French original, and published thus after the above-mentioned alterations.