Throughout his career, Beethoven was a fervent believer in Enlightenment values and found ways to express those beliefs in many of his compositions, as well as in his letters and other writings. One of the reasons for the nearly universal appeal of his Ninth Symphony is that people enjoying or seeking freedom see this work as exquisitely expressing a message they wish loudly to proclaim. And that message is simple, almost embarrassingly naive, one we learn as children: People should get along, we are all brothers and sisters.

For his last symphony, Beethoven returned to a lengthy poem by Friedrich Schiller that he had long wanted to set to music but for which he had never quite managed to find the right mode of expression: the “Ode to Joy” (1785). Schiller’s famous words state that in a new age the old ways will no longer divide people and that “all men shall become brothers.” Since its premiere in Vienna in May 1824, performances of the Ninth Symphony have become almost sacramental occasions, as musicians and audiences alike are exhorted to universal fraternity.

On a more purely musical level, perhaps no other piece of music has exerted such an impact on later composers. How, many wondered, should one write a symphony after the Ninth? Schubert, Berlioz, Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler—the list goes on—all dealt with this question in fascinating ways that fundamentally affected the course of 19th-century music. Schubert, who apparently attended the premiere, briefly quoted the “joy” theme in his own final symphony, written the following year. Almost every Bruckner symphony begins in the manner of the Ninth—low string rumblings that seem to suggest the creation of a musical world. Mendelssohn, Mahler, and Shostakovich followed the model of a choral finale. Wagner was perhaps the composer most influenced by the Ninth, arguing that in it Beethoven pointed the way to the “Music of the Future,” a universal drama uniting words and tones, in short, Wagner’s own operas.

But composers were not the only ones to become deeply engaged with the Ninth, to struggle with its import and meaning. For more than a century, the work has surfaced at crucial times and places. As the ultimate “feel good” piece, the Ninth has been used at various openings of the Olympic Games, bringing all nations together in song. Its melody is the official anthem of the European Union. The Ninth has also appeared on many solemn occasions. Within recent memory, we may recall protestors playing the Ninth in Tiananmen Square in Beijing or German students doing so during the fall of the Berlin Wall. There were many performances in the wake of 9/11, when the Ninth was once again enlisted for its universal and hopeful message.

The opening of the first movement (Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso) grows out of a void. Against the murmurings of the low strings emerge falling fifths in the violins that grow to a loud and imposing first theme; it has all been likened to the creation of the world and certainly no symphony before had sounded anything like it. Beethoven switched the expected order of movements by placing the scherzo (Molto vivace) next. A favorite with audiences from the beginning, it projects both humor and power. The lyrical slow movement (Adagio molto e cantabile) explores more personal, even spiritual realms.

The Presto finale opens with what Wagner called the “terror fanfare,” a dissonant and frantic passage that leads to a “recitative” for the cellos and basses. Fragments from the previous three movements pass in review but are rejected by the strings. After this strange, extended recitative comes the aria: the famous “Ode to Joy” melody to which later will be added words. After some seven minutes the movement starts over again—the “terror fanfare” returns, but this time is followed by a vocal recitative with the bass soloist singing “O friends, not these tones. But rather, let us strike up more pleasant and more joyful ones.” The chorus and four vocal soloists take up the “joy” theme, which undergoes a continuing series of variations, including a brief section in the Turkish manner. The music reaches a climax with a new theme: “Be embraced, ye millions! … Brothers, above the starry canopy there must dwell a loving Father,” which is later combined in counterpoint with the joy theme and eventually builds to a frenzied coda.

                                                                              —Christopher H. Gibbs

Program note © 2023. All rights reserved. Program note may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association.

English translation by Paul J. Horsley