In his book “The Roots of Romanticism,” Isaiah Berlin writes in a sardonic tone of the popular image of Beethoven as a romantic artist:
“Beethoven is a man who does what is in him. He is poor, he is ignorant, he is boorish. His manners are bad, he knows little, and he is perhaps not a very interesting figure, apart from the inspiration which drives him forward. But he has not sold out. He sits in his garret and he creates. He creates in accordance with the light which is within him, and that is all that a man should do: that is what makes a man a hero.”
Of course, there were times when Beethoven was something less than a musical hero.
Of the two works that Beethoven composed for the opening of the imperial theater in Pest, “The Ruins of Athens” is the more interesting, including a duet for soprano and bass, a bass aria, a Turkish March, and a crazy Choruses of Dervishes that is like nothing else in Beethoven.
In “The Ruins of Athens,” the goddess Minerva (a.k.a. Athena in the Greek pantheon) is awakened after 2000 years and is shocked to find Athens in ruins. Following a series of false turns and disappointments, she finally discovers the new Athens in Pest.
Beethoven had intended to compose a new Turkish March for “The Ruins of Athens,” but after some tries, he decided to use the one he had composed for his Opus 76 Piano Variations (Day 225) with some Janissary influenced orchestration.
The complete libretto of “The Ruins of Athens” with English translation is available on the Naxos website: naxos.com/catalogue/item…
Click the words “Sung Text” for a PDF, and buy some Naxos CDs as a way of saying Thanks!
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The Ruins of Athens (Opus 113), 1811
This video is accompanied by the score, but the music is not quite complete: It’s missing the spoken dialogue and an offstage wind ensemble.
A complete version of “The Ruins of Athens” does not seem to be available on YouTube, but the Naxos recording has all the spoken dialogue. Here’s the album on Spotify, with “The Ruins of Athens” beginning on Track 5:
Beethoven: The Ruins of Athens
For Barry Cooper, one highlight of “Athens” is the “high priest, a Sarastro-like figure who sings a profoundly expressive aria (‘Will unser Genius’) accompanied by four concertante horns.” (p. 221). That aria goes down to C₂ at the end — so low that an alternative is supplied.
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The Ruins of Athens Overture (Opus 113, Overture), 1811
Orchestras sometimes play the overture by itself. Here’s the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
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The Ruins of Athens Turkish March (Opus 113, excerpt), 1811
The Turkish March is often played by itself, such as by this student orchestra.
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The Ruins of Athens Turkish March (Opus 113, excerpt), 1811
Arthur Rubenstein made a transcription of the Turkish March that is popular among adventurous pianists.
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The Ruins of Athens Turkish March (Opus 113, excerpt), 1811
A rather sluggish rendition of the Turkish March on piano, surprising since cats usually play more energetically.
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The Ruins of Athens Turkish March (Opus 113, excerpt), 1811
This video might begin with an ad, but you get to see eight famous and semi-famous pianists playing the Turkish March.
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The Ruins of Athens Chorus of Dervishes (Opus 113, excerpt), 1811
The Chorus of Dervishes is not often performed by itself, but here’s a transcription for flutes of many sizes by the Song of the Angels Flute Orchestra.
In 1897, Camille Saint-Saëns wrote to a music critic he knew:
“Since you, just as I, have witnessed those mystical ‘spinning tops’ whirling in Cairo, how is it that you have never noticed the identity of the triplets played by the flutes which accompany them with those in the chorus of The Ruins of Athens? In my opinion, it is impossible that Beethoven, through the simple intuition of genius, could have thought it up; he must have had an authentic document at his disposal. Obviously, the effect is much more beautiful in his work than in its ‘natural’ state, but that is not the important point.” (as quoted in Scherman & Biancolli, “The Beethoven Companion,” p. 677)
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Franz Liszt’s Fantasy on Themes from Beethoven’s “The Ruins of Athens”
This is one of several Liszt compositions based on music from “The Ruins of Athens”