Leonore from scratch / or / The Origins of Beethoven's Operatic Ensembles

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The doctoral project focuses on Beethoven's sketches for the trios and quartets of his only opera 'Leonore'/'Fidelio'. Beethoven famously struggled with vocal ensemble writing and consequently took lessons from Salieri. He also studied Salieri's opera 'Les Danaïdes', Cherubini's 'Les deux journées', Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' and 'The Magic Flute', copying passages from them. These preliminary studies are closely linked to his own opera composition intentions. The vast corpus of surviving compositional sketches by Beethoven provides manifold evidence of his working methods, and traces of his musical thinking. As an integral part of his works' "biographies", they hold those musical ideas from which he eventually shaped his compositions. 'One sees becoming, emerging', Brahms writes of Beethoven's sketchbooks. This research project aims to yield deep insights into Beethoven's modus operandi, difficulties and solutions in composing the vocal ensembles for his opera with regard to the effect of his studies with Salieri as well as his habit of copying from his peers. So far, this has only been touched upon in the literature; concrete implications for Beethoven's own work have not been addressed. Hitherto unedited sketches will be made accessible through transcriptions. Inferences about the entire opera, its conception, its biographical, and compositional context will be drawn. The doctoral project thus constitutes a desideratum for musicology in several respects.