Philharmonia Sessions: Beethoven’s Prometheus – Battersea Arts Centre
Presented in the month of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra playing Beethoven's famous ballet The Creatures of Prometheus. In this version, each symphonic movement is punctuated by Stephen Fry explaining the part of the story about to be told, aided by animation by Hillary Leben and a script by Gerard McBurney.
Beethoven wrote his hugely popular ballet score in 1801, in just 11 days and, as Fry tells us, the version of the ancient Greek creation story he used is not the most widely established one about Prometheus giving man fire. In this version Prometheus creates man with fire from Mount Olympus and then calls on Apollo, god of music and dance, the Muses, and a host of other deities to teach his Creatures what it is to ex...