Leonore Overture No 3 Op 72 Ludwig van BeethovenBorn December 16 1770 in Bonn GermanyDied March
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This work was first performed on March 29, 1806 at the Theater-an-der-Wien in Vienna. It is scored for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings.
In 1805, when Ludwig van Beethoven completed the first version of his only opera, known today as Fidelio, it was the culmination of a lifelong desire to compose music for the stage. His choral works, especially the Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II and Cantata on the Accession of Emperor Leopold II, both from 1790 in Bonn, show an innate dramatic sense. Beethoven's greatest aspiration, however was to compose a bona fide opera.
Upon the composer's arrival in Vienna in 1792, he immediately began studies with Haydn. In the elder musician's traditional method of teaching, the young Beethoven worked almost exclusively on counterpoint exercises with no outlet for actual composition. When Haydn left for his second London visit in 1794, Beethoven began studies with noted teacher Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, whose methods were even more confining than those of Haydn. It was not until the turn of the century that Beethoven found a mentor who was not only sympathetic to his operatic aspirations, but was himself one of the greatest operatic composers of his day Antonio Salieri. It was under the Italian's influence that Beethoven undertook the composition of his first operatic project a setting of a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of Mozart's The Magic Flute, entitled Vesta's Fire...