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1 CD -
4509-90876-2 - (p) 1995
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Ludwig van
Beethoven (1770-1827) |
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Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus,
Op. 43 |
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68' 41" |
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Ouverture: Adagio - Allegro
molto con brio |
5' 02" |
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1
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Introduction: Allegro non troppo
- La Tempesta |
2' 14" |
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2
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- I. Poco Adagio |
3' 34" |
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3
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- II. Adagio - Allegro con brio |
1' 45" |
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4
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- III. Allegro vivace |
2' 30" |
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5
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- IV.
Maestoso - Andante |
1' 34" |
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6
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- V. Adagio - Andante quasi
Allegretto
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7' 43" |
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7
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- VI. Un poco Adagio - Allegro |
1' 24" |
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8
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- VII. Grave |
4' 25" |
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9
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- VIII. Allegro con brio |
7' 14" |
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10
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- IX. Adagio |
4' 00" |
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11
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- X. Pastorale: Allegro |
2' 44" |
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12
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- XI. Andante Coro di Gioja |
0' 23" |
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13
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- XII. Maestoso Solo di
Gioja
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3' 05" |
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14
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- XIII. Allegro Terzettino
"Grotteschi" |
4' 10" |
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15
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- XIV. Andante Solo della
Casentini |
5' 38" |
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16
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- XV. Andantino Solo di
Viganò |
4' 49" |
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17
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- XVI. Finale: Allegretto Danze
festive |
6' 22" |
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18
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Chamber Orchestra
of Europe |
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, Dirigent
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Luogo
e data di registrazione
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Musikverein,
Vienna (Austria) - novembre 1993 |
Registrazione
live / studio
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studio |
Producer
/ Engineer
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Wolfgang
Mohr / Helmut Mühle / Michael Brammann
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Prima Edizione CD
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Teldec
- 4509-90876-2 - (1 cd) - 68' 41" - (p)
1995 - DDD |
Prima
Edizione LP
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The Creatures of Prometheus
or The Power of Music and Dance
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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
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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