Ludwig van Beethoven wrote The Ruins of Athens (Die Ruinen von Athen), Op. 113, in 1811. It is a set of incidental pieces, meant to accompany the play of the same name by August von Kotzebue. Eventually a second overture, called The Consacration of the House, was written in 1822, to be performed on the ocassion of the reopening of Vienna's Theater. The best known music from The Ruins of Athens is possibly its Turkish March, which is often performed as a separate piece (Beethoven even published a set of variations, Op. 76, on this theme). The music form The Ruins of Athens was reworked in 1924 by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. In 1852, Liszt composed a Fantasy on motives from the Ruins of Athens, S. 122. In Latin America the Turkish March theme achieved notorious fame, after it was modified by Jean-Jacques Perrey and later used as the opening theme for the highly successful Mexican TV comedy El Chavo del Ocho.
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote The Ruins of Athens (Die Ruinen von Athen), Op. 113, in 1811. It is a set of incidental pieces, meant to accompany the play of the same name by August von Kotzebue. Eventually a second overture, called The Consacration of the House, was written in 1822, to be performed on the ocassion of the reopening of Vienna's Theater. The best known music from The Ruins of Athens is possibly its Turkish March, which is often performed as a separate piece (Beethoven even published a set of variations, Op. 76, on this theme). The music form The Ruins of Athens was reworked in 1924 by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. In 1852, Liszt composed a Fantasy on motives from the Ruins of Athens, S. 122. In Latin America the Turkish March theme achieved notorious fame, after it was modified by Jean-Jacques Perrey and later used as the opening theme for the highly successful Mexican TV comedy El Chavo del Ocho.