Volker Hartung conducts the Cologne New Philharmonic with Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fidelio" Overture.
Recorded at Gürzenich Concert Hall in Cologne, Germany.

Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler wrote in 1948:
… this is the opera which, thanks to the music of Beethoven, gives us comfort and courage.... Certainly, Fidelio is not an opera in the sense we are used to, nor is Beethoven a musician for the theater, or a dramaturgist. He is quite a bit more, a whole musician, and beyond that, a saint and a visionary. That which disturbs us is not a material effect, nor the fact of the 'imprisonment'; any film could create the same effect. No, it is the music, it is Beethoven himself. It is this 'nostalgia of liberty' he feels, or better, makes us feel; this is what moves us to tears. His Fidelio has more of the Mass than of the Opera to it; the sentiments it expresses come from the sphere of the sacred, and preach a 'religion of humanity' which we never found so beautiful or necessary as we do today, after all we have lived through. Herein lies the singular power of this unique opera.... Independent of any historical consideration ... the flaming message of Fidelio touches deeply.“

Beethoven struggled to produce an appropriate overture for Fidelio, and ultimately went through four different versions.
In 1814 Beethoven began anew, and with fresh musical material wrote what we now know as the Fidelio overture. As this somewhat lighter overture seems to work best of the four as a start to the opera, Beethoven's final intentions are generally respected in contemporary productions.
In Memory of Beethoven's 250th birthday, the Cologne New Philharmonic, conducted by Volker Hartung, is presenting a new recording and a brilliant reading of the overture from the opera "Fidelio."

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