Alexa F. Faraday, MD
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We will hear Beethoven’s final setting
of this verse, made in 1823 –24 about the
time he was composing the Ninth Symphony. In E Major throughout, it features
a soprano soloist, who presents the solemn
ceremonial theme and is echoed by the
chorus for the last part of each of her two
strophes. The most striking quality of this
setting is perhaps the color of the instrumental ensemble Beethoven has chosen
here: a plangent-sounding wind ensemble
of clarinets, bassoons, and horns — but
omitting the brighter toned flutes and
oboes — along with strings. For the second verse, he introduces a prominent solo
cello part, later expanded to all the cellos,
whose mellow tone adds a poignantly
personal quality to the music.
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor
Ludwig van Beethoven
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In the 190 years since its composition,
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 has become
far more than just another symphony. It is
now “The Ninth”: an artistic creation, like
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which every age
and nearly every culture finds a mirror of
its identity, its struggles, and its aspirations. Most listeners would agree with
Michael Steinberg that, “explicitly, it seeks
to make an ethical statement as much as a
musical statement.”
Beethoven always believed music had a
higher purpose than merely the making of
beautiful sounds, that it could express and
inspire human aspirations toward a more
exalted life, in closer harmony with neighbors and strangers alike, and ultimately
with God. In the Ninth, he drove home
this message by crowning his instrumental
symphony with an unprecedented choral
finale: a setting of Friedrich Schiller’s poem
“Ode to Joy,” in which joy is defined as a
state in which “all men are made brothers.”
The Ninth Symphony comes from the
visionary last years of Beethoven’s life during which he also created the Missa solemnis
and his celebrated late string quartets.
He had not written a symphony since the
Eighth in 1812. The years that followed
had been a period of emotional struggle
and artistic stasis. Only when Beethoven
resolved the battle for custody of his nephew Karl in 1820 did his creative powers
flow freely again. By 1822 when he began
sketching the Ninth, he was described by a
Viennese contemporary, Johann Sporschil,
as “one of the most active men who ever
lived … deepest midnight found him still
working.” Now virtually stone deaf, he had,
in biographer Maynard Solomon’s words,
“reached a stage where he had become
wholly possessed by his art.”
Since at least the early 1790s, Beethoven
had loved Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” (written
in 1785 as a drinking song) and considered setting it to music. But as late as the
summer of 1823, he was still considering a
purely instrumental finale for the Ninth.
When he made the bold decision to risk
a vocal movement, he edited the poem to
make it express a higher joy for mankind
than could be found in any tavern.
Beethoven had loved
Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”
(written in 1785 as a drinking
song) and considered
setting it to music.
Premiered at Vienna’s Kärtnertor Theater on May 7, 1824, the first performance
reportedly moved its audience to tears as
well as cheers. Beethoven was on the podium, but the real conductor was Michael
Umlauf; the musicians had been instructed to follow only his beat and ignore
the deaf Beethoven’s. The performance
would probably have sounded terrible to
us today: orchestra and singers had had
only two rehearsals together of a work that
many found beyond their capabilities.
And yet the magic of the Ninth somehow
won out. At the end of symphony, the
alto soloist, Caroline Unger, had to turn
Beethoven around to see the audience’s
tumult; unable to hear them, he had
remained hunched over his score.
And what of the wonders of this score?
Later composers wrote longer first movements, but the Ninth’s opening movement,
at just 15 minutes, seems the vastest
of them all. From the opening trickle of