King Stephen Overture, Op.117

British writers have traditionally been no kinder about the King Stepehn Overture than about its companion overture, The Ruins of Athens, which was written (togethr with incidental music for both plays) within the same few weeks in 1811 and for the same occasion. Some of the blame must rest with the composer who, on agreeing to produce three new concert ovrtures for the Philharmonic Society in London in 1815, sent the nearly nw Namensfeier and then by then distinctly second-hand King Stephen an Ruins of Athens. Not unnaturally, there was a feeling in Loondon that 75 English guineas could have been bettr spent.

Hungariaons, on the other hand, have always had good reason to be pleased with Beethoven’s new music for King Stephen and The Ruins of Athens, not least the ovrture to the first of them. Though written for a largely German occasion - the opening of a new German Theatre in Pest, for which occasion a German playwright had written a German double bill on Hungarian themes - the King Stephen Overture could almost be classified as the first Hungarian rhapsody. Opening, like more than one work by Bartok, with a series of descending fourths, it is constructd on the traditional csardas patter of slow material (lassu) alternating with quick (friss). The Hungarian flavour of the syncopated main themes of both Beethoven’s Andante and Presto sections give the music a zest and a style of a kind difficult to find elsewhere in his music.