Hess 122 – First version, in C minor, of the same aria as in the previous number.
Hess 122 – First version, in C minor, of the same aria as in the previous number. The same considerations as for No. 121 apply.
The score was published by Willy Hess in the journal Santa Cecilia, IV, Rome, August 1956, and again in the Annuario dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia 1954–1955, Rome 1956. Both versions are autonomous compositions; they splendidly increase the limited number of Beethoven’s concert arias. And neither of the two arias is included in any of the three versions of Fidelio.
It seems they were set aside from the beginning, just as happened with the Overture op. 138.
[This version of the aria was published by Hess in SBG, vol. II, 1960, p. 46. Rachel Wade wrote an excellent analysis of the Eroica sketchbook, published in Fontes Artis Musicae, XXIV (1977). From her inventory of the sketchbook, it seems that work on this aria was not undertaken before 1805.]
