1 CD - 4509-90876-2 - (p) 1995

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)






Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, Op. 43
68' 41"




Ouverture: Adagio - Allegro molto con brio 5' 02"
1
Introduction: Allegro non troppo - La Tempesta 2' 14"
2
- I. Poco Adagio 3' 34"
3
- II. Adagio - Allegro con brio 1' 45"
4
- III. Allegro vivace 2' 30"
5
- IV. Maestoso - Andante 1' 34"
6
- V. Adagio - Andante quasi Allegretto
7' 43"
7
- VI. Un poco Adagio - Allegro 1' 24"
8
- VII. Grave 4' 25"
9
- VIII. Allegro con brio 7' 14"
10
- IX. Adagio 4' 00"
11
- X. Pastorale: Allegro 2' 44"
12
- XI. Andante Coro di Gioja 0' 23"
13
- XII. Maestoso Solo di Gioja
3' 05"
14
- XIII. Allegro Terzettino "Grotteschi" 4' 10"
15
- XIV. Andante Solo della Casentini 5' 38"
16
- XV. Andantino Solo di Viganò 4' 49"
17
- XVI. Finale: Allegretto Danze festive 6' 22"
18




 
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dirigent

 
Luogo e data di registrazione
Musikverein, Vienna (Austria) - novembre 1993
Registrazione live / studio
studio
Producer / Engineer
Wolfgang Mohr / Helmut Mühle / Michael Brammann
Prima Edizione CD
Teldec  - 4509-90876-2 - (1 cd) - 68' 41" - (p) 1995 - DDD
Prima Edizione LP
-

The Creatures of Prometheus or The Power of Music and Dance
The two s[tatues] move slowly across the stage from the background. - P[rometheus] gradually regains consciousness, look towards the field, and is pleased when he sees his plan is such a success; he is inexpressibly delighted, stands up and beckons to the children to stop - They turn slowly towards him in an emotionaless manner. - P continues to address them, expresses his divine and fatherly love for them, and commands them (gives them a sign) to approach him. - They look at him in an emotionless manner - turn to a tree, the great size of wich they contemplate. - P begins once more to be disheartened, is fearful, and is saddened. He goes towards them, takes their hands and leads them to the front of the stage; he explains to them that they are his work, that they belong to him, that they must be thankful to him, kisses and caresses them. - However, still in an emotionless manner, they sometimes merely shake their heads, are completely  indifferent, and stand there, groping in all directions.              
Beethoven's holograph copy of choreographical notes
from the scenario No. 1 contained in the
Berlin "Landsberg 7" sletchbook


After Haydn had congratulated him on the success of the Viennese premiere of Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, Beethoven is said to have exclaimed "That is very kind of you, but it is not yet a Creation by any stretch of the imagirmtion!". Yet it was a genuine compliment. After all, despite some unfavourable reviews, there were twenty performances of the music for Salvatore Viganò's ballet in the 1801-02 season. Thus Beethoven was not simply being presumptuous, for the subiect, its treatment and above all the close cooperation between the choreographer and the composer had led to a work for the stage which in fact constituted an attempt to transcend the symphony, the oratorio and opera, thereby producing a new kind of theatrical genre that included both music and dancing. This “ballo serio" (the subtitle on a copy made for Beethoven) combines aspects of the allegorical pantomime, of the heroic ballet. and above all of a quite novel kind of "musique parlante" which, in tone poems based on some kind of programme, continues to be eloquent even when words are no longer present.
“Prometheus lifts the people of his time up out of their ignorance, makes them more refined through scholarship and art, and gives them manners. This in a few words constitutes the subject matter." Without meaning to do so, the otherwise ill-tempered review of the first performance in the Zeitung für die elegante Welt put its finger on the ideas on which the work is based. The earnestness with which Beethoven sought to understand and treat the dramatic scenario is revealed not only by the composition's strict adherence to details of the plot, but also by the central significance that the idea was to retain in his compositional work for years to come. Constantin Floros has shown that the subject and structure of Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus op. 43 were later elaborated in the Sinfonia eroica, which was originally designed as a svmphony about Napoleon.
However, the inner unity of the ballet music was already considered to be problenratical in 1801, especially with regard to the characterization, the sequence of ideas, and the formal structure. The review cited above stated that Beethoven “wrote too learnedlv for a ballet and did not pay enough attention to the dance, and this can hardly be called into question. For a divertissement, which is what the ballet is really meant to be, everything was much too large, and on account of the lack of the appropriate situations it was destined to remain more a fragment than a whole." Beethoven's conternporaries did not know that this was a key work, nor that the subject of Prometheus was destined to play a role in the Eroica, in the late works and, as has sometimes been claimed, in the Ninth Symphony. All this only became apparent much later. For a long time Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus continued to be thought of as ballet music, and as a relatively unimportant early work at that. Those who saw it as an example of symphonic music ior the stage noted a lack of "inner unity", which was thought to be due to the disparity between the large-scale opening and final sections of the two acts. and the succession of short numbers towards the end.
It is no longer possible to give credence to the notion that the plot cannot be reconstructed, and that it is therefore necessary to salvage the work as "absolute music" (with this in mind Hugo Riemann even argued in favour of treating it as an extended set of variations). Above all there is the evidence provided in Beetboven's sketches, which have now been reconstructed and deciphered, by entries and remarks such as "les trois graces... les enfants pleurent... Prom. weint... mi presenta miseria", and by a detailed holograph précis of the plot that is based on the lost scenario by Viganò. This demonstrates the rondo structure of No. l in a rather compelling manner. Finally, there are the headings in the vocal score checked by Beethoven (e g. "Atto II"), and information relating to the dancers’ solos (Gioja, Mme Casentini and Viganò). All this has made it possible to assign the indiridual movements to the dramatic structure of the ballet. Furthermore, it corresponds to the précis of the ballet transmitted in Carlo Ritorni’s biography of Viganò, which was published in Milan in 1838. This text which has been supplemented by Nikolaus Harnoncourt does not give the exact succession of the scenes, though it contains a description of all the numbers for which Beethoven composed music (The track numbers of this complete recording of Beethoven's ballet music have been inserted at the appropriate places.)
In l8l3 Viganò produced a six-act version of his Prometheus chroreographv for a performance at La Scala in Milan. It included additional material by Joseph Weigl and parts of Haydn's The Creation. It is easy to understand why Beethoven said that this particular Prometheus gave him ‘no real pleasure'. However, in Milan the expanded version was acclaimed as being the "solution of the Faust problem", as a document of the incontrovertible mastery of Viganò (whom Stendhal rightly considered to be one of the greatest geniuses of the age), and as the beginning of a new era of ballet. Nevertheless, both in Italy and in Germany Beethoven's ballet music failed to achieve lasting popularity and remained a work of historical interest only. Indeed, it became a classic example of attempts at historical reconstruction. And thus Haydn’s answer to the provocative comment cited above unfortunately continues to be valid in a musical world that is only interested in a composer's principal works: "That is true", he objected, no doubt somewhat taken aback at Beethoven's comparison of his first stage work with his own late masterpiece, "it is not yet a ‘Creation'; and [I] find it difficult to believe that it will ever become one."

Rainer Cadenbach
Translation: Alfred Clayton

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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