The culmination of a life’s work

With his Ninth, Beethoven set out to create more than a symphony. Completely deaf, in poor health, lonely and struggling with a host of personal problems, he was determined to overcome all that by transcending everything he had written before. All the works of his final period were fruits of this superhuman effort, but the Ninth Symphony has become an icon of Western culture to an even greater extent than the others, for at least two reasons. Its message explicitly affirms the triumph of positive forces over adversity like no other piece of music has ever done. And its revolutionary form, its unprecedented size and complexity and, above all, the introduction of the human voice in a symphony, changed the history of Western music forever. The work’s message and the means by which it is expressed are both unique: each explains and justifies the other.

In a way, Beethoven seems to have prepared for this exceptional composition all his life. In 1790, the composer, barely 20, composed a pair of cantatas on the death of Emperor Joseph II and the inauguration of Leopold II, respectively; the concluding chorus of the latter begins with the words Stürzt nieder, Millionen (“Fall to your knees, ye millions”)–a close paraphrase of Friedrich Schiller’s An die Freude (“To Joy”), which Beethoven used in the final movement of the Ninth. The Choral Fantasy (1808) is a direct precursor of the Ninth, as its concluding melody is very close to the “Ode to Joy” theme. And Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio (final version 1814), contains another quote from Schiller’s poem in its final scene: Wer ein holdes Weib errungen… (“A man who
has found a gracious wife…”)

We have evidence that Beethoven knew An die Freude even as a young man in Bonn, and planned to set it to music then. Written in 1785, the poem quickly became famous all over Germany, yet Schiller was never entirely satisfied with it. He omitted the poem from the edition of his collected works and revised it repeatedly over the years. The definitive version, which Beethoven used, was published in 1808, three years after Schiller’s death. ¹

Beethoven had made a few sketches for An die Freude over the years, but it was not until 1824–during the final stages of composing the Ninth–that he decided to compose a large-scale setting of the poem, and to have it serve as the last movement of the symphony. The momentous decision to introduce the human voice into an instrumental work did not come easily to him, and it took a long time before the two ideas, originally separate–the grand symphony and the Schiller setting–were finally combined.

¹ According to a second-hand recollection first published decades after the fact, Schiller may have originally meant to praise Freiheit (liberty) instead of Freude (joy) and made the change out of fear of censorship. If this is true, then Leonard Bernstein unwittingly restored Schiller’s original idea when he performed the Ninth to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989

The genesis of a masterpiece

The Ninth Symphony was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London. Beethoven began working on it in 1817, a full seven years before the piece reached its final form. Originally, he planned to write not one but two new symphonies, similarly to Nos. 5-6 (1807-08) or 7-8 (1811-12), which were also conceived as pairs. Yet the Tenth Symphony never progressed beyond a few sketches; the Ninth remained Beethoven’s last work for orchestra.

After making preliminary sketches throughout 1817-18, Beethoven temporarily abandoned the symphony and, between 1819 and 1823, wrote his last three piano sonatas, the “Diabelli” Variations, and the Missa Solemnis. He took up the Ninth again in October 1822, and completed it, in the form we know it today, in early 1824. The premiere, given in Vienna on May 7, 1824, was enthusiastically received, as was the repeat performance sixteen days later. According to the often-repeated story, Beethoven, standing on stage, was unable to hear the ovations until the soprano soloist, Caroline Unger, gently turned him around so he could at least see the cheering crowd.

From tragedy to triumph

The opening of the symphony, with its open fifths played in mysterious string tremolos (rapid repeated notes), inspires associations with the creation of the world, as the theme emerges from an amorphous, primordial state. There is an atmosphere of intense expectancy; the tension continually grows until the main theme is presented, fortissimo, by the entire orchestra. It is significant that the mysterious opening is immediately repeated, as it will be two more times in the course of the movement, significantly prolonging the sensation of suspense. The main theme is moved into a new key the second time, and into an unexpected one at that. The first movement of a D-minor symphony normally gravitates upward toward F major. Beethoven chose a descent to B-flat instead, and one doesn’t need to understand music theory to feel the absence of that “brightening” of the atmosphere that usually occurs in symphony movements. The Allegro does follow the outlines of sonata form, but the individual stages of that form does not quite function the usual way. In traditional sonata form (Mozart, for instance), the tensions that build up in the development section are resolved in the recapitulation. Here, on the other hand, the tensions keep increasing to the end. The movement’s lengthy coda contains some material of a highly dramatic character; it ends on a climactic point, without a feeling of resolution.

The first movement is followed by a scherzo. Having the scherzo movement in second place is unusual in symphonies, though not uncommon in chamber music. In any case, Beethoven refrained from using the word “Scherzo” here, because the mood is not humorous or playful at all. It is based on a motif of only three notes, played in turn by the strings, the timpani (specially tuned at an octave instead of the usual fourth), and the winds. The motif is developed in a fugal fashion, with subsequent imitative entrances—this fugal theme appeared in Beethoven’s sketchbook as early as 1815. Through the addition of a second theme, contrasting with the first, the scherzo is expanded into a sonata-like structure of considerable proportions. The Trio, or middle section, switches from triple to duple meter, and from D minor to D major, anticipating not only the key of the finale but the outline of the “Ode to Joy” theme as well. For the first time, we reach a haven of peace and happiness that foreshadows the finale. But for the moment, the Trio is brushed aside by the repeat of the dramatic “Molto vivace.” At the end, Beethoven leads into the trio a second time, but breaks it off abruptly, to end the movement with two measures of octave leaps in unison. According to one commentator, this ending suggests an “open-ended” form that could “move back and forth between scherzo and trio endlessly.” In other words, we cannot at this point tell for sure whether the final outcome will be tragic or joyful.

First, there is one more stage to complete: the sublime third-movement Adagio, one of Beethoven’s most transcendent utterances. It has two alternating melodies: one majestic, the other tender. Each recurrence of the first theme is more ornate than the preceding one while the second theme does not change. The movement culminates in a powerful brass fanfare, followed by a wistful epilog.

We are jolted out of this idyll by what, in 1824, must have counted as the most jarring dissonance ever written. Wagner referred to this sonority as the Schreckensfanfare (“fanfare of horror”), and, at the opening of the finale, it forcefully suggests that we have arrived at a point where all previous rules break down. We can no longer predict the future on the basis of the past; what follows has absolutely no precedent in the history of music.

In his excellent 1995 book on the Ninth Symphony, David Benjamin Levy interprets the finale as a four-movement symphony in its own right that mirrors the four movements of the Ninth Symphony itself (opening, scherzo, slow movement, finale). After the fanfare, Beethoven begins the first of these sections by evoking the past: the themes of the first three movements appear, only to be emphatically rejected by the dramatic recitative of the cellos and basses. The first two-measure fragment of the “Ode to Joy” theme, however, is greeted by a recitative in a completely different tone as the tonality changes to a bright D major.

The “Ode to Joy” theme is first played by the cellos and basses without any accompaniment. It is subsequently joined by several countermelodies (including a particularly striking one in the bassoon) and finally repeated triumphantly by the entire orchestra. Then the music suddenly stops and the Schreckensfanfare unexpectedly returns, followed by the entrance of the baritone soloist who takes up the last phrase of the earlier instrumental recitative to lead into the vocal presentation of the “Ode to Joy.” The words of this recitative (O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!) were added by Beethoven. As before, during the instrumental variations, the melody grows and grows in volume and excitement until (at the words Und der Cherub steht vor Gott) there is a new interruption.

The second major section (Levy’s “second movement”) starts here, with the scherzo-like “Turkish march” for tenor solo and a battery of percussion instruments. It has been dubbed the “Turkish march” because of a musical style influenced by the Turkish janissary bands popular in Vienna at the time. The theme of the “Turkish march” is, of course, a variation on the “Ode to Joy” melody. This episode is followed by an orchestral interlude in the form of a fugue, also based on the “Ode to Joy.” The melody is recapitulated in its original form by the orchestra and chorus, and then the music stops again.

In the third section (the “slow movement”), the men from the chorus introduce a new theme (Seid umschlungen, Millionen). If the Freude, schöner Götterfunken melody celebrated the divine nature of Joy, this theme represents the Deity in its awe-inspiring, cosmic aspect. Whereas the first theme proceeded entirely in small steps, the second one is characterized by wide leaps; this sudden expansion in the dimensions of the melody conjures up a sense of the infinite and God’s throne above the starry skies. The final section begins with the two themes heard simultaneously in what Levy calls a “symbolic contrapuntal union of the sacred and the profane.” The solo quartet returns to the first strophe of Schiller’s poem; once more, the music starts anew to rise to new heights of joyful energy. Three slow sections intervene to delay this final ascent; the second of these (an Adagio cadenza for the four solo singers) momentarily brings back memories of the symphony’s slow movement. But finally, nothing can stop the music from reaching a state of ecstasy. After the last unison D in measure 940, the journey is completed and there is nothing more to say.

~ Notes by Peter Laki, copyright 2025