12/1 Beethoven's "Dervish Chorus"

One of my favorite less-famous choral "numbers" by Beethoven is the "Chorus of Dervishes" from "The Ruins of Athens" (Die Ruinen von Athen), Opus 113, another of Beethoven's works for the stage.  In general B. preferred to write music only for the opening, transitions and non-speaking action parts of plays.  He wasn't interested in "background music", though I often consider his stage music to be a 19th Century equivalent to today's film music - well, functionally at least.

August von Kotzebue's play "Die Ruinen von Athen" premiered at the opening of a new royal theater in Pest (now Budapest) in Hungary. The plot is as follows:

"Die Ruinen von Athen (The Ruins of Athens) tells the story of Minerva, who, after sleeping for 2,000 years, awakens to find the Parthenon destroyed and Athens occupied by the Turks. Culture and reason have disappeared from what was the ancient Greek world, but these human qualities have been preserved in Pest by the enlightened Emperor Franz." (Allmusic)

The Emperor Franz happened to be the reigning emperor at the time, so you can see how appropriate this plot was to the occasion....

Beethoven wrote the music for "Ruins" as well as music for another play for the same occasion ("King Stephen") in 3 weeks while at the hot springs at Teplitz to cure some stomach pains.  Altogether he wrote 17 pieces (!).