ABSTRACT
As popular as the Prometheus myth was during the romantic era, it rarely inspired autonomous instrumental compositions intended exclusively for concert performance. Beethoven’s ballet and Liszt’s incidental music originated in the theater, although the overtures from both scores admittedly enjoyed limited independence on orchestral programs. Nearly every remaining work involved a text: Reichardt, Schubert, and Wolf set Goethe’s ode; French composers gravitated toward cantatas or stage works with topical librettos; and Parry likewise met a specific occasion’s demands by turning to Shelley’s lyric drama. Additional cantatas by French, Belgian, German, and Italian composers, another incidental score, a burlesque, and even a set of trivial waltzes for solo piano confirm nineteenth-century predilections for theatrical or dramatic representations of the legend.1
