Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 is the last complete symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, it includes part of the ode An die Freude ("Ode To Joy") by Friedrich Schiller, with text sung by soloists and a chorus in the last movement. It is the first example of a major composer using the human voice on the same level with instruments in a symphony.
The symphony is one of the best known of all works of European classical music, and is considered one of Beethoven's greatest masterpieces, composed while he was nearing complete deafness. It plays a prominent cultural role in modern society.
In particular, the music from the fourth movement (Ode to Joy) is used as the official anthem of the European Union (the German lyrics have no official status). Further testament to its prominence is that an original manuscript of this work sold in 2003 for 3.3 million dollars. Due to the universal appeal of this symphony, it is now part of the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
Text of fourth movement
Words written by Beethoven, not Schiller, are shown in italics.
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History
Writing of the symphony
The Society of London (later the Royal Philharmonic Society) originally commissioned the symphony in 1817. Beethoven supposedly started work on his last symphony in 1818 and finished it early in 1824. This was about ten years after his eighth symphony. However, Beethoven started working on this piece much earlier. Beethoven wanted to put the An die Freude to music as early as 1793. He did that as a piece, but unfortunately that piece has been lost forever. The theme for the scherzo can be traced back to a fugue written in 1815.
The introduction for the vocal part of the symphony caused many difficulties for Beethoven. Beethoven's friend, Anton Schindler, later said: "When he started working on the fourth movement the struggle began as never before. The aim was to find an appropriate way of introducing Schiller's ode. One day he [Beethoven] entered the room and shouted 'I got it, I got it!' Then he showed me a sketchbook with the words 'let us sing the ode of the immortal Schiller'". However, that introduction did not make it into the final product, and Beethoven spent a great deal of time rewriting the part until it had reached the form recognizable today.
Premiere
Beethoven was eager to get his work played in Vienna as soon as possible when he finished writing. He was equivocal, however, thinking also that the musical taste in Vienna was stricken by Italian composers such as Rossini. When his friends and financiers heard this they urged him to premiere the symphony in Vienna. (In Vienna, there was a learning group called the Vienna Circle.)
The Ninth Symphony was premiered on Friday, May 7, 1824 in the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna. The work was premiered along with the overture Die Weihe des Hauses and the first three parts of the Missa solemnis. This was the composer's first on-stage appearance in twelve years; the hall was packed. The soprano and alto parts were interpreted by two famous young singers: Henriette Sonntag and Caroline Unger.
Although the performance was officially directed by Ignaz Umlauf, the theater's Kapellmeister, Beethoven shared the stage with him. However two years earlier, Umlauf had watched as the composer's attempt to conduct a dress rehearsal of his opera Fidelio ended in disaster. So this time, he instructed the singers and musicians to ignore the totally deaf Beethoven. At the beginning of every part, Beethoven, who sat by the stage, gave the tempos. He was turning the pages of his score and was beating time for an orchestra he could not hear.
There are a number of anecdotes about the premiere of the Ninth. Based on the testimony of the participants, there are suggestions that it was under-rehearsed (there were only two full rehearsals) and rather scrappy in execution. On the other hand, the premiere was a big success. In any case, Beethoven was not to blame, as violist Josef Bohm recalled, "Beethoven directed the piece himself, that is: he stood before the lectern and gesticulated furiously. At times he raised, at other times he shrunk to the ground, he moved as if he wanted to play all the instruments himself and sing for the whole chorus. All the musicians minded his rhythm alone while playing".
When the audience applauded, testimonies differ over whether at the end of the scherzo or the whole symphony, Beethoven was several measures off and still conducting. Because of that, the contralto Caroline Unger walked over and forcibly turned Beethoven around to accept the audience's cheers and applause. According to one witness, "the public received the musical hero with the utmost respect and sympathy, listened to his wonderful, gigantic creations with the most absorbed attention and broke out in jubilant applause, often during sections, and repeatedly at the end of them." The whole audience acclaimed him through standing ovations five times; there were handkerchiefs in the air, hats, raised hands, so that Beethoven, who could not hear the applause, could at least see the ovation gestures. The theatre house had never seen such enthusiasm in applause.
At that time, it was customary that the imperial couple be greeted with three ovations at their entrance in the hall. The fact that a private person, who wasn’t even employed by the state, and all the more, was a musician (class of people who had been perceived as lackeys at court), received five ovations, was in itself inadmissible, almost indecent. Police agents present at the concert had to break off this spontaneous explosion of ovations. Beethoven left the concert deeply moved.
The repeat performance on May 23 in the great hall of the Fort was, however, poorly attended.
There was much negative criticism of the symphony and its "dissonances" at the time.
Music
Naming
The official name is: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, opus 125. The symphony is sometimes referred to as "Choral", pointing to the vocal end of the symphony. Beethoven had wanted to set Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' to music for many years and in fact later stated that he had wished to write an alternative instrumental ending to the Ninth Symphony, leaving an interpretation of the 'Ode to Joy' as a separate work.
Score
The Ninth Symphony is scored for an unusually large orchestra for the time, which included piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets (in C, A and B flat), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns (in D, E flat, B flat and bass B flat), 2 trumpets (in D, B flat), 3 trombones, 2 timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, a string section consisting of the usual first and second violins, violas, cellos, double basses, four vocal soloists (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone), and a chorus singing in four parts (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). These are by far the largest forces needed for any Beethoven symphony; at the premiere Beethoven expanded them further by assigning two players to each wind part.
Form
The symphony is in four movements, marked as follows:
- Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
- Molto vivace
- Adagio molto e cantabile
- Presto/recitative - Allegro ma non troppo/recitative - Vivace/recitative - Adagiocantabile/recitative - Allegro assai/recitative - Presto/recitative: "O Freunde" - Allegro assai: "Freude, schöner Götterfunken" - Alla marcia - Allegro assai vivace: "Froh, wie seine Sonnen" - Andante maestoso: "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" - Adagio ma non troppo, ma divoto: "Ihr, stürzt nieder" - Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato: "Freude, schöner Götterfunken" / "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" - Allegro ma non tanto: "Freude, Tochter aus Elysium!" - Prestissimo: "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!"
This arrangement of movements adopts a slightly unusual Classical pattern, with the scherzo movement in second (rather than the normal third) position. Beethoven was familiar with this arrangement from Haydn's work and had used it on various occasions throughout his career (the quartets Op. 18 no. 4-5, the "Archduke" piano trio Op. 97, the "Hammerklavier" piano sonata Op. 106).
First movement
The first movement is in sonata form, following a formal model that had guided Beethoven throughout his career. The mood is generally bleak and stormy. A striking moment here is the onset of the recapitulation section, which instead of literally repeating the pianissimo opening bars in D minor, switches to fortissimo D major, a key change which has struck many listeners, paradoxically, as expressing terror or awe. The coda employs the chromatic fourth in a way that was copied by Bruckner in his own Third Symphony. The piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones are not called for in this movement; however, this is the first appearance of the quartet of horns in a Beethoven symphony.
Second movement
The second movement, a scherzo, is likewise in D minor, with the opening theme a kind of echo of the theme of the first movement, a pattern found likewise in the Hammerklavier piano sonata, written a few years earlier. It is notable for its propulsive rhythm and timpani solos (for this purpose the two timpani are tuned, unusually, an octave apart). At one point Beethoven gives the direction ritmo di tre battute, meaning that the beats of three consecutive measures must form a single rhythmic unit, as if the music were in 9/4 instead of 3/4 time; this is later reverted with ritmo di quattro battute, with the typical four-measure beat.
The contrasting trio section is in D major and in duple time. The trio also marks the first arrival of the trombones in the work.
Third movement
The lyrical and deeply felt slow movement, in B-flat major, is written in a loose variation form, with each of the two variations dividing the basic beat to produce a more elaborate melodic configuration than what went before. The first variation, like the theme, is in 4/4 time, the second in 12/8. The variations are separated by more impassioned passages in 3/4, the first in D major, the second in G major. The final variation is twice interrupted by striking episodes in which loud fanfares for the full orchestra are answered by double-stopped octaves played by the first violins alone. Also worth noting is a virtuosic horn solo assigned to the fourth player. Trombones are tacet for the movement.
Fourth movement
The famous choral finale has struck many listeners as somewhat rambling. Some helpful clarification can be found in the description of Charles Rosen, who characterizes it as a symphony within a symphony, containing four movements played without interruption. This "inner symphony" follows the same overall pattern as the Ninth Symphony as a whole. The scheme is as follows:
- First "movement": theme and variations with slow introduction. Main theme which first appears in the cellos and basses is "recapitulated" with voices(see below).
- Second "movement": 6/8 scherzo in military style (begins at "Alla marcia", words "Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen"). Beethoven's older listeners at the premiere would have recognized this as so-called "Turkish music." Concludes with 6/8 variation of the main theme with chorus.
- Third "movement": slow meditation with a new theme on the text "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" (begins at "Andante maestoso")
- Fourth "movement": fugato finale on the themes of the first and third "movements" (begins at "Allegro energico")
The movement differs from an independent symphony because of its thematic unity: every part is based on either the main theme, the "Seid umschlungen" theme, or some combination of the two.
The first "movement within a movement" itself is organized into sections:
- An introduction, which starts with a stormy, chaotic Presto passage. It then briefly quotes all three of the previous movements in order, each dismissed in various ways by the cellos and basses, which play in an instrumental foreshadowing of the vocal recitative. The introduction eventually "discovers" the famous theme, which then becomes the subject of---
- A series of variations for orchestra alone.
- The introduction is then repeated from the Presto passage, this time with the bass soloist singing the recitatives previously suggested by cellos and basses, followed by---
- The variations again, this time for vocal soloists and chorus.
Trivia
Performing the symphony
Lasting more than an hour, the Ninth was an exceptionally long symphony for its time. However, it has been exceeded in length by many later symphonies, most notably those of Bruckner and Mahler. Mahler's second, third and eighth, inspired by Beethoven, are very similar in conception and style due to their "grand" demeanors and extensive use of large choral and vocal forces.
Beethoven's Ninth makes extreme demands on the singers, partly because his vocal writing seems designed to evoke a sense of effort, and partly because concert pitch is higher now than it was in Beethoven’s day. Thus, it is fairly rare to find a performance that is suitably forceful but avoids any hint of shrieking or shouting. Specialists in historically informed performance have experimented with performing the work at Beethoven’s concert pitch, which seems to help somewhat.
A delicate issue conductors must face is the fact that Beethoven left metronome markings specifying the tempo of each section. Historically, conductors have been very reluctant to respect these markings, preferring, for example, a slower tempo than Beethoven's for the slow movement and a faster tempo for the military march section of the finale. In general, Beethoven's metronome markings have proven unpopular among modern artists, and the possibility that Beethoven was (despite his unquestioned abilities as a composer) an inept metronome user should perhaps not be excluded. Conductors in the historically informed performance movement, notably Roger Norrington, have experimented with adhering to Beethoven's tempos, to mixed reviews.
Ninth Symphony in the 20th century
In 1964 Maurice Béjart and his Ballet du XXe siècle gave an acclaimed performance of "IXe symphonie", a ballet based on the Ninth Symphony.
Among recorded performances, those conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, especially those of 1942, 1951, and 1954, Herbert von Karajan, especially those of 1963 and 1976, Fritz Reiner, Leonard Bernstein, George Szell, and John Eliot Gardiner are highly regarded. Such judgments about musical performances are often biased or controversial. The musicologist Richard Taruskin has a detailed analysis and comparison of performances of Beethoven's 9th in his essay "Resisting the Ninth".
The Ninth Symphony has frequently been incorporated into film scores, television, and popular music (see below).
At most Olympic Games during the second half of the 20th Century, the fourth movement has been performed as part of ceremonial processions, and as the national anthem of the United Team of East and West Germany, at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics. It was also used as the anthem for the Unified Team of the former USSR during the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville and the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
The symphony seems to have taken particularly deep root in Japan, where it is widely performed during December as part of the annual celebration of the new year. For example, in the Japanese anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, the character Kaworu states that "[The fourth movement] is the greatest achievement in the [human] culture."
The Ode to Joy was adopted as Europe's anthem by the Council of Europe in 1972, with an official arrangement for orchestra written by von Karajan.
In 2003, the European Union chose Beethoven's music as the EU anthem, without German lyrics, because of the many different languages used within the European Union. The ideal of human brotherhood is stated in much more universal terms in Beethoven's adaptation ("All men become brothers") than in Schiller's original, which states that "Beggars become princes' brothers".
Beethoven's music was also adopted as a national anthem by the UDI regime of Rhodesia. In 1974 it was put to words. (See Rise O Voices of Rhodesia.)
Students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square protest broadcast the symphony through loudspeakers in 1989 as a statement against tyranny. A famous performance conducted by Leonard Bernstein on December 25, 1989 celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall. It substituted Freiheit ("freedom") for Freude ("joy") in the sung text.
During the FIFA World Cup 2006 the South Korean supporters used Ode to Joy as their main chant supported by drums.
It is widely believed that the playback time specifications of the Sony/Philips Compact Disc were influenced by a desire to accommodate performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on a single disc, without interruption. This requirement has been variously attributed to Herbert von Karajan (a Philips artist with access to Sony chairman Akio Morita), to Morita's wife, and to Sony president Norio Ohga. The urban legends investigators at snopes.com consider this to be "undecided." According to Philips, it was indeed Ohga who suggested extending the capacity enough to accommodate Beethoven's 9th. [1] More on the possibility of the 9th determining the size of the Compact Disc can be found in CD; in the end it is highly unlikely that this was actually the reason.
9 Beet Stretch is a recording of Beethoven's 9th by Leif Inge, slowed to run for 24 hours without pitch distortion.
The Ode to Joy is an unofficial anthem of Nicaragua's FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional).
The Ninth Symphony in popular culture
Because the Ninth Symphony is perhaps the best known of all works of classical music, it has frequently been adapted for use in works of popular culture, particularly film scores, television, and popular music. The following is a partial list of such adaptations:
- The second and final movements are featured prominently in the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation (in partially synthesised form in the film, notably with the vocals provided by a vocoder). The finale of Herbert von Karajan's 1963 Deutsche Grammophon recording is played over the final scene in the movie.
- The beginning of the second movement, the Scherzo, is used in the theme of Keith Olbermann's program Countdown on MSNBC.
- The opening measures of the second movement were used as the theme music for an American news broadcast in the 1960s, the Huntley-Brinkley Report.
- The final movement was adapted by Carter Burwell for a bluegrass tune in his score for the 1987 Coen Brothers' motion picture Raising Arizona. It was used as a reference to A Clockwork Orange.
- The final movement was used by Michael Kamen in his score for the 1989 thriller Die Hard. The scene in which the movement is heard is the one that depicts the robbers gazing in wonder at the finally cracked open safe.
- A portion of the final movement was used in Alan J. Pakula's movie Sophie's Choice from 1982.
- Satoshi Kon used the fourth movement in his anime film Tokyo Godfathers jokingly when a father reunites with his daughter, and at the end of the film when a Japanese synthesizer version is heard as buildings in Tokyo 'dance' to it.
- The anime Neon Genesis Evangelion used the fourth movement as a thematic device in its 24th episode, culminating with much of the fourth movement being used in the climactic final battle; when one-off character Kaworu Nagisa enters the series, he is humming the tune, and even declares the movement the greatest work in human history. The entirety of the fourth movement was also placed on the NEON GENESIS EVANGELION ADDITION soundtrack.
- The fourth movement is used prominently in the Read or Die OVA.
- Billy Joel used the last several measures (the Prestissimo) to open his Millennium Concert on December 31, 1999 at Madison Square Garden.
- The anime Gunslinger Girl used the fourth movement at the climax of the 13th and final episode as a main character dies as the others watch a meteor shower.
- Portions of the first and second movements were used in Don Hertzfeldt's animated short film Rejected.
- A portion of the choral finale was used in the film Dead Poets Society, during the scene on the lawn.
- The first movement is played in the film Equilibrium.
- The fourth movement is the primary opening theme of the U.S. game show Win Ben Stein's Money.
- The Ode to Joy is sung in the Beatles film Help!.
- Ode to Joy is also used at the end of the 1986 movie The Money Pit.
- American telecasts of the Olympic Games often feature a portion of the Fourth Movement near the end of the telecast during the montage of video highlights from the Games.
- While the song has a generally religious theme, it is not specific to any religion. In 1907, Reverend Henry van Dyke wrote a specifically Christian hymn to the main theme music. Its first verse reads: Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee / God of glory, Lord of love / Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee / Opening to the sun above / Melt the clouds of sin and sadness / Drive the dark of doubt away / Giver of immortal gladness / Fill us with the light of day.
- The fourth movement's main theme was used in the milk commercial to the lyrics of "Drink Milk, Love Life" in the 1990's.
- It appears in The Simpsons' episode Bart Has Two Mommies, when Rod and Tod Flanders discover the joys of the see-saw.
- The second movement has been used as a sample by Microsoft in its Windows XP operating system.
- Football fans at a stadium soccer game will often spontaneously chant the famous melody from the fourth movement ("Freude, schöner Götterfunken...") to cheer on the players, albeit usually without the lyrics. It was for example often heard in the background of televised games of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Popular song renditions
- Song of Joy by Miguel Rios is a pop song adaptation of Beethoven's 9th. It was released in 1970 in the Spanish speaking world and 1971 saw its English translation. Song of Joy was a global hit.
- German Neo-Medieval Folk/Industrial-Metal band Tanzwut did a rendition of "Ode to Joy" under the title "Götterfunken", with metal guitars, orchestra, and bagpipes. The song is featured on their LP "Labyrinth der Sinne".
- Mr. Andy Williams, famous USA 60's crooner, did a wonderful LP of classics reworked with lyrics, around 1984-1985. Andy has a spectacular song called "Words" featuring the London Symphony Orchestra playing the 9th Symphony, while Andy Williams, in wonderful full voice, belts out the lyrics to "Words".
- Ritchie Blackmore's band Rainbow record the final Ode to Joy movement for their 1980 album Difficult to Cure, renaming it to be the title track.
- In 1983, Louise Tucker released the song "Midnight Blue" on Arista Records which hit the Billboard Hot 100 song chart. The song was from an LP of the same title, and performed by the Louise Tucker Project. It is a pop version of the Beethoven 9th Symphony with an soaring soprano voice and throbbing keyboard beat.
- The music of the symphony was also used in the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's album Beethoven's Last Night (most specifically in the song "A Last Illusion").
- The Ninth Symphony is also heard in "Memory (Dead Winter Dead)", off Savatage's Dead Winter Dead album.
- A portion of the 4th movement is used in the opening of the song "Will you be there" by Michael Jackson.
- Part of Ode to Joy was mixed in as a backbeat to End of the Century, one of the songs produced by Naoki Maeda (under the pseudonym "No. 9") for Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX.
- Both the fourth movement and a parody of Friedrich Schiller's title for it are used in the song 'Road to Joy' on Bright Eyes' album I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning.
Notable Recordings of the Ninth Symphony
- Felix Weingartner conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in 1935.
- Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in March 1942.
- Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra in 1951. This concert re-opened the Bayreuth Festival after the Allies temporarily suspended it following the Second World War.
- Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1952.
- Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in Lucerne in 1954.
- Otto Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in November, 1957. Released by BBC Testament.
- Ferenc Fricsay conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in 1958. This was the first stereo recording of the 9th, and is noteworthy in itself.
- Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philmarmonic in 1962 and 1977, as part of complete Beethoven symphony cycles.
- George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. Recorded in 1968 and released on CD in 1991 by Sony.
- Karl Böhm conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in 1981 with Jessye Norman and Plácido Domingo among the soloists. At 79 minutes, this is among the longest ninths recorded.
- Günter Wand conducting the NDR-Sinfonieorchester (North German Radio Symphony Orchestra). Recorded in 1986 and released in 2001 by RCA Red Seal.
- Leonard Bernstein conducted a "modified" version of the 9th, replacing "Freude" with "Freiheit" ("Joy" with "Freedom") at the fall of Berlin wall on Christmas of 1989. This concert was performed by joint-international orchestra and chorus. There are controversies regarding whether the symphony should have been modified, while others approve of the change, given the occasion. Regardless, the concert was a major historical event. The recording of this concert, by Deutsche Grammophon, is currently out of print.
- Roger Norrington conducting the London Classical Players. Recorded with period instruments. Released in 1997 by Virgin Classics.
- Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker. Recorded in 2003 as part of the complete Beethoven symphony cycle on EMI Classics.
Media
References
- Richard Taruskin, "Resisting the Ninth", in his Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance (Oxford University Press, 1995).
- David Benjamin Levy, "Beethoven: the Ninth Symphony," revised edition (Yale University Press, 2003).
External links
- Free scores by 9th symphony (PDF) at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Original manuscript (site in German)
- The William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University School of Music's has posted a score for the symphony.
- Alcove Music Publications' simpler score.
- Sound samples and other info from the Classical Music Pages
- Text/libretto, with translation, in English and German
- EU official page about the anthem
- Analysis of the Beethoven Symphony No. 9 on the All About Ludwig van Beethoven Page
- A guided tour of Beethoven's 9th Symphony by Robert Kapilow on WNYC's Soundcheck
- Recording featuring Maximianno Cobra directing the Europa Philharmonia Budapest Orchestra & Choir
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