For his only opera Leonore / Fidelio, Beethoven wrote four openings in all. The so-called "Opening of Leonore 3" is chronologically speaking the second in the series, and certainly the most played of all the openings of Beethoven. Already during her lifetime, she was not only given to the theater, but also in concert, and thus constituted, alongside the overtures of Coriolan and Egmont, the new form of the Concert Openings. Recognized as a masterpiece in the mid-nineteenth century, it became, according to the testimony of Beethoven's biographer Anton Schindler, the "work openly preferred by all orchestras". It now appears as a Work Edition based on the score of the Complete Edition of Beethoven's Works accompanied by an Autonomous Preface.
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