Overture to the ballet

We are pleased to be able to offer a performing version of the Urtext that has been edited by Klaus Kropfinger from sources found in a state that is typical of Beethoven: no autograph but various sources bearing corrections by the composer.

The autograph of the ballet music to The Creatures of Prometheus, for instance, has not come down to us. Julius Rietz, the editor of the first Beethoven Complete Edition, was only able to consult the copy of the score in the Haslinger-Rudolfinische Collection which, due to the standardizing tendency identifiable in its calligraphy, was rejected as a source by Klaus Kropfinger in his Urtext edition. Instead, he used as his main source a copy of the score examined by the composer himself and located at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. To help solve many problems found in this copy, an impression of the proofs of the piano version (originally published as op. 24), also corrected by Beethoven, was consulted along with the original edition of the orchestral parts.