Hess 121 – Marzelline’s Aria “O wär ich schon mit dir vereint”, in C major, first absolute version. [The aria was written in 1806, or earlier, and formed part of the revision of Fidelio; in any case, Beethoven later decided to replace it with the original 1805 version.] A piano reduction of the aria was published in Otto Jahn’s edition of the 1806 version of Fidelio (Leipzig, 1851; see no. 110 of this catalogue), as well as in the second edition of Erich Prieger’s piano reduction of the first version of Fidelio, published in Leipzig in 1907 (see no. 109 of this catalogue). A copy of the aria is preserved at the Berlin State Library [now SBB], in Beethoven Autograph 26. The full score remains unpublished. [Published with an Italian text edited by Giovanni Biamonti in the journal Santa Cecilia, IV, Rome, August 1956. Also published by Hess in SBG, vol. II, 1960, p. 35, with the original German text. In the critical apparatus (Revisionsbericht) of the SBG, Hess cites what Anton Schindler wrote on the first page of the manuscript: “Diese Bearbeitung ist nach Beethovens Äußerung die allererste unter den Vieren”. If Schindler is to be believed, then this aria must predate the one that follows in the catalogue; and if Rachel Wade is correct, this number must have been written no later than 1805, and perhaps somewhat earlier still. See the note to the following no. 122.]