Ludwig van Beethoven, Musik zu August von Kotzebues Festspiel "Die Ruinen von Athen" op. 113, Nr. 6, Marsch mit Chor (Es-Dur), Horn II-Stimme, Stimmen, Überprüfte Abschrift

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On 13 September 1822 Beethoven wrote a letter to Carl Friedrich Peters in Leipzig from Baden, a small spa outside Vienna: "And hardly had I arrived here when I met a theatrical manager who is building a theatre in Vienna which he is opening with one of my compositions. So to please him I have had to compose a few new movements." (from the translation by Emily Anderson, 1961). The theatre director to whom Beethoven is referring is Karl Friedrich Hensler, manager of the newly rebuilt Josephstadt Theatre, which was reopened on 3 October 1822. The theatre was reopened with a production of "Die Weihe des Hauses" ("The Consecration of the House") by Carl Meisl, for which occasion Beethoven adapted his "Die Ruinen von Athen" ("The Ruins of Athens"), op. 113. He specially composed the overture, op. 124, and the Chorus "Wo sich die Pulse jugendlich jagen", WoO 98, and made some alterations to the March with Chorus, originally op. 113 no. 6, after alterations becoming op. 114. The second horn part shown here is a clean copy by the copyist Wenzel Rampl, and is the only known copied part for the March. It has been mistakenly bound into the part material for op. 116 - thus presumably made for a concert in 1814. Beethoven may, however, have had the horn part copied for the performance for the consecration of the house in 1822. (J.R.)