Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Chronological Bibliography of Books, Articles, Book Chapters, and Musical Editions by Lewis Lockwood
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One A Creative Life
- 1 Of Deserters and Orphans: Beethoven's Early Exposure to the Opéras-Comiques of Monsigny
- 2 “A Really Excellent and Capable Man”: Beethoven and Johann Traeg
- 3 A Four-Leaf Clover: A Newly Discovered Cello, the Premiere of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven's Circle of Friends in Bonn, and a Corrected Edition of the Song “Ruf vom Berge,” WoO 147
- 4 “Where Thought Touches the Blood”: Rhythmic Disturbance as Physical Realism in Beethoven's Creative Process
- 5 The Sanctification of Beethoven in 1827–28
- Part Two Prometheus / Eroica
- 6 The Prometheus Theme and Beethoven's Shift from Avoidance to Embrace of Possibilities
- 7 Beethoven at Heiligenstadt in 1802: Deconstruction, Integration, and Creativity
- 8 “Mit Verstärkung des Orchesters”: The Orchestra Personnel at the First Public Performance of Beethoven's Eroica
- Part Three Masses
- 9 “Aber lieber Beethoven, was haben Sie denn wieder da gemacht?” Observations on the Performing Parts for the Premiere of Beethoven's Mass in C, Opus 86
- 10 Heart to Heart: Beethoven, Archduke Rudolph, and the Missa solemnis
- 11 God and the Voice of Beethoven
- Part Four Quartets
- 12 “So Here I Am, in the Middle Way”: The Autograph of the “Harp” Quartet and the Expressive Domain of Beethoven’s Second Maturity
- 13 Meaningful Details: Expressive Markings in Beethoven Manuscripts, with a Focus on Opus 127
- 14 The Autograph Score of the Slow Movement of Beethoven’s Last Quartet, Opus 135
- 15 Early German-Language Reviews of Beethoven's Late String Quartets
- Part Five Explorations
- 16 Three Movements or Four? The Scherzo Movements in Beethoven's Early Sonatas
- 17 Utopia and Dystopia Revisited: Contrasted Domains in Beethoven's Middle-Period F-Major and F-Minor Works
- 18 Schooling the Quintjäger
- 19 Cue-Staff Annotations in Beethoven's Piano Works: Reflections and Examples from the Autograph of the Piano Sonata, Opus 101
- 20 Another Little Buck Out of Its Stable
- 21 Beethoven's Cavatina, Haydn's Seasons, and the Thickness of Inscription
- List of Contributors
- Index of Works by Beethoven
- General Index
6 - The Prometheus Theme and Beethoven's Shift from Avoidance to Embrace of Possibilities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Chronological Bibliography of Books, Articles, Book Chapters, and Musical Editions by Lewis Lockwood
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One A Creative Life
- 1 Of Deserters and Orphans: Beethoven's Early Exposure to the Opéras-Comiques of Monsigny
- 2 “A Really Excellent and Capable Man”: Beethoven and Johann Traeg
- 3 A Four-Leaf Clover: A Newly Discovered Cello, the Premiere of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven's Circle of Friends in Bonn, and a Corrected Edition of the Song “Ruf vom Berge,” WoO 147
- 4 “Where Thought Touches the Blood”: Rhythmic Disturbance as Physical Realism in Beethoven's Creative Process
- 5 The Sanctification of Beethoven in 1827–28
- Part Two Prometheus / Eroica
- 6 The Prometheus Theme and Beethoven's Shift from Avoidance to Embrace of Possibilities
- 7 Beethoven at Heiligenstadt in 1802: Deconstruction, Integration, and Creativity
- 8 “Mit Verstärkung des Orchesters”: The Orchestra Personnel at the First Public Performance of Beethoven's Eroica
- Part Three Masses
- 9 “Aber lieber Beethoven, was haben Sie denn wieder da gemacht?” Observations on the Performing Parts for the Premiere of Beethoven's Mass in C, Opus 86
- 10 Heart to Heart: Beethoven, Archduke Rudolph, and the Missa solemnis
- 11 God and the Voice of Beethoven
- Part Four Quartets
- 12 “So Here I Am, in the Middle Way”: The Autograph of the “Harp” Quartet and the Expressive Domain of Beethoven’s Second Maturity
- 13 Meaningful Details: Expressive Markings in Beethoven Manuscripts, with a Focus on Opus 127
- 14 The Autograph Score of the Slow Movement of Beethoven’s Last Quartet, Opus 135
- 15 Early German-Language Reviews of Beethoven's Late String Quartets
- Part Five Explorations
- 16 Three Movements or Four? The Scherzo Movements in Beethoven's Early Sonatas
- 17 Utopia and Dystopia Revisited: Contrasted Domains in Beethoven's Middle-Period F-Major and F-Minor Works
- 18 Schooling the Quintjäger
- 19 Cue-Staff Annotations in Beethoven's Piano Works: Reflections and Examples from the Autograph of the Piano Sonata, Opus 101
- 20 Another Little Buck Out of Its Stable
- 21 Beethoven's Cavatina, Haydn's Seasons, and the Thickness of Inscription
- List of Contributors
- Index of Works by Beethoven
- General Index
Summary
Beethoven's fascination with the Prometheus theme between 1800 and 1803 is evidenced by four works: the Contredanse, WoO 14, no. 7; the finale of The Creatures of Prometheus, op. 43; the Piano Variations, op. 35; and the fourth movement of the Eroica Symphony, op. 55. The theme provides Beethoven with the materials for remarkably distinctive works and an outpouring of creativity. Scholarship on the four pieces inevitably recognizes the extent of Beethoven's thematic exploration. In a book chapter entitled “Recurring Ideas,” Barry Cooper writes, “[Beethoven] was particularly good at finding different and unexpected ways of developing such material.” Cooper concludes, “Thus his reuse of earlier ideas, far from being a sign of a limited imagination, is an indication of his extraordinary ability to discover hidden possibilities in them.”
This is true, but the narrative of Beethoven's triumph in continuing to find developmental possibilities makes it easy to overlook another part of the story—the extent to which Beethoven, in the Prometheus finale and the Piano Variations, largely avoids pursuing certain types of obvious musical development and possibilities. Different types of developmental restraint help to define each of these early works. An important element of the drama that connects each of these pieces is that toward the end, at a coda, the music escapes the restraints that have largely controlled what has come before. The end of each piece introduces a new path that can be taken with old material. And when Beethoven returns to the Prometheus theme in successive works, the developmental space that was opened up at the end of one work energizes a new exploration of the theme in the next.
Beethoven composed The Creatures of Prometheus from 1800 to 1801, in between his First and Second Symphonies. Lewis Lockwood writes of opus 43 that “[i]t was deliberately tailored to the conventions of theater music, which [at this time] had no need of the developmental types of discourse that were expected in the symphony.” Even so, Beethoven's aversion to significantly varying the recurring material is astonishing, especially given the amount of repetition found in the movement.
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- The New BeethovenEvolution, Analysis, Interpretation, pp. 123 - 147Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020