Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Manuscript copy of part of Act I of Fidelio, Op.72, n.d. [19th century, after 1814]
A 19th-century copy of Fidelio, Beethoven’s only opera; the third and final version, revised in 1814.

Full score of numbers 8-10 of Act 1 of Fidelio, the third and final version, written by a single copyist on single-stave systems. c.235 pages, 295 x 225mm, numbered in pencil 310-550, paper ruled with 10-16 staves per page, instrumentation and tempo markings in Italian, libretto in German, 11-page appendix containing trumpet, trombone, horn and timpani parts for the overture in E flat. Contemporary half calf, spine lettered ‘Fidelio/ Act 1^st Part 1^st/ Beethoven’.

Provenance:
(1) Sotheby’s, 11 March 1974, lot 120.

(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 5527.

In 1814, Beethoven revised Fidelio for the second time; the third and final version that premiered at Vienna’s Kärntnertortheater is in two acts and with the overture in E flat.

The opera numbers in the present manuscript, which run from 7 to 9, do not quite correspond with the first edition published in 1826, In which they are numbered 8-10. The pagination of our volume indicates that it must have been part of a series.