The scenario for Beethoven’s ballet has long since vanished, though the general outline can be deduced. The subject meant much to him, and the ‘Prometheus’ theme, in its association with the gods’ citadel being stormed on behalf of suffering humanity, became so emblematic that after various travels it eventually found its way into the greatest heroic statement of the age, the Eroica Symphony. Trying to reconcile this with the Viennese taste for divertissement in ballet, Beethoven ran into the same trouble with the balletomanes that Tchaikovsky was to do: the music was found too serious. Yet it can be a mistake to play the ballet’s finale, which begins by being very close to the symphony, as if it actually were the symphony. Halasz treats it gracefully, but not with the lightly dancing elegance of Mackerras’s version with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on Hyperion. Mackerras also gives the more dynamic performance of the overture, with its demonstration of human energy and determination, bright and vigorous as is Halasz’s performance.
Some of the intervening dances are very brief gestures, quickly and tellingly made here. One or two are more substantial, most effectively the Adagio, No. 5, which contains some beautiful instrumental writing to which the soloists of the Melbourne orchestra respond eloquently. However, agreeable as this performance is, it will scarcely dislodge affections from Mackerras’s version, whose recording also does fuller justice to Beethoven’s ear for orchestral sonority.'