“Aus Mozart gestohlen”: Beethoven and Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Abstract

I begin by showing that two Beethoven sketches, a well-known 1790 entry in the so-called “Kafka” miscellany and an entry in “Landsberg 10” (part of a group of sketches, 1805, for the Allegro theme of the overture known as Leonore No. 2), point to the overture of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. I then consider additional connections between Beethoven’s opera and Mozart’s, in general, and specifically regarding certain corresponding components. I conclude by considering the implications of these findings within the larger context of the Mozart legacy that Beethoven, for better but also for worse, inherited.