Someone said—was it A. W. Thayer?—of this overture that he could not
understand it—until he read Collin’s tragedy; that he could not
reconcile the music with Shakespeare’s text. Pray, what would the
gentleman have had? It is immaterial whether Beethoven had Collin or
Shakespeare in mind. The name Coriolanus was enough, even if he knew it
only from some schoolboy history of Rome; for in this music we hear the
proud voice, we hear the haughty, inexorable bearing of the
soldier-patrician. Nor does it matter whether the lyrical theme is the
entreating voice of wife or mother. Possibly if one should read Collin’s
play he would wonder that Beethoven should have written an overture for
it. There it is—one of Beethoven’s greatest works. From his own disdain
of the mob, from his own contempt of what the public thought of his
music, he recognizes in Coriolanus a kindred spirit.
* * *
The original manuscript of the overture bears this inscription:
_Overtura_ (_zum Trauerspiel Coriolan_) _composta da L. v. Beethoven,
1807_. The words in parentheses are crossed out. The overture was
published in 1808. The tragedy by Heinrich Joseph von Collin, in which
the hero kills himself, was produced in Vienna on November 24, 1802.
Collin (1771-1811) was jurist and poet. In 1803 he was ennobled. In 1809
he became court councillor. Other tragedies by him were _Regulus_ and
_Polyxena_. In 1807 Beethoven was expecting a libretto from him. Collin
tried _Macbeth_, Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_, and a _Bradamante_ to
which J. F. Reichardt set music. But Beethoven wrote to Collin:
“Great irate poet, give up Reichardt. Take my _music_ for your _poetry_;
I promise that you will not thereby suffer. As soon as my concert is
over ... I will come to you, and then we will at once take in hand the
opera—and it shall soon sound. For the rest you can ring out your just
complaints about me by word of mouth.” The libretto before this had
seemed to Beethoven “too venturesome” in respect of its use of the
supernatural. Collin’s biographer, Laban, says that the _Macbeth_
libretto was left unfinished in the middle of the second act “because it
threatened to become too gloomy.” At various times Beethoven thought of
Grillparzer’s _Melusine_, Körner’s _Return of Ulysses_, Treitschke’s
_Romulus and Remus_, Berger’s _Bacchus_, Shakespeare’s _Romeo and
Juliet_, Schiller’s _Fiesco_, Grillparzer’s _Dragomira_, Voltaire’s
tragedies, and Goethe’s _Faust_, as operatic subjects. He told Rellstab
that the material must be attractive to him; that it must be something
he could take up with sincerity and love. “I could not compose operas
like _Don Juan_ and _Figaro_. They are repugnant to me. I could not have
chosen such subjects; they are too frivolous for me!”
It is in one movement, _allegro con brio_, in C minor, 4-4, as written,
_alla breve_ as played. It begins with a succession of three long-held
_fortissimo_ C’s in the strings, each one of which is followed by a
resounding chord in the full orchestra. The agitated first theme in C
minor soon gives place to the second lyrically passionate theme in E
flat major. The development of this theme is also short. The free
fantasia is practically passage-work on the conclusion theme. The
tendency to shorten the academic sonata form is seen also in the third
part, or recapitulation. The first theme returns in F minor with
curtailed development. The second theme is now in C major. The _coda_
begins with this theme; passage-work follows; there is a repetition of
the C’s and the chords of the beginning; and the purely dramatic close
in C minor may be suggestive of the hero’s death.