King Stephen Overture, op. 117

König Stephan was written in the late summer of 1811, in a few weeks, as one half of a commission for the opening of the new German theatre in Pest. August von Kotzebue supplied a prologue on Hungary's first Christian king and an epilogue, Die Ruinen von Athen, and Beethoven set both; the double bill was given on 9 February 1812. The overture opens with heavy unison chords and turns to a Hungarian-flavoured dance, material Beethoven treated as functional occasional music — he was working on the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies at the same time.