Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)

Lore & Background

Beethoven made preliminary sketches later that year, with the key set as D minor and vocal participation forecast. The symphony emerged from other pieces by Beethoven, such as the Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, which brings in a choir and vocal soloists for the climax. Mozart's Offertory in D minor, 'Misericordias Domini', K.

Reader's Guide

The Ninth Symphony is significant as the first example of a major composer scoring vocal parts in a symphony. Its final movement, commonly known as the Ode to Joy, features four vocal soloists and a chorus in D major, with text adapted from Friedrich Schiller's poem 'An die Freude' and additional text by Beethoven. In the 20th century, an instrumental arrangement of the chorus was adopted by the Council of Europe and later the European Union as the Anthem of Europe. In 2001, Beethoven's original manuscript was added by UNESCO to its Memory of the World International Register, becoming the first musical score so designated. The premiere involved an orchestra nearly twice as large as usual and was a great success, though there are suggestions it was under-rehearsed and somewhat uneven in execution.

Did You Know?

• The premiere featured an orchestra nearly twice as large as usual, combining the Kärntnertor house orchestra, the Vienna Music Society, and capable amateurs.
• At the premiere, Beethoven shared the stage with conductor Michael Umlauf but was almost completely deaf; the musicians were instructed to ignore him.
• The contralto Caroline Unger turned Beethoven around to accept the audience's cheers after the symphony ended, as he was still conducting several bars off.

A Revolutionary Leap in Symphonic Writing

The Ninth Symphony marked a watershed moment in orchestral composition. No major composer before him had scored sustained vocal parts within a symphonic framework. The final movement, set in the parallel key of D major, calls for four solo voices and a full chorus, a dramatic expansion that redefined what a symphony could encompass.

A Deaf Composer Takes the Stage

The concert also featured the overture Die Weihe des Hauses and three movements of the Missa solemnis. The Ninth demanded an orchestra nearly twice the usual size, drawing musicians from the Kärntnertor house orchestra, the Vienna Music Society, and a group of skilled amateurs. Officially, the theatre's Kapellmeister Michael Umlauf conducted, but Beethoven stood at the podium as well. Two years earlier, Umlauf had witnessed Beethoven's disastrous rehearsal of a Fidelio revision, so for this performance he quietly instructed the players and singers to follow his own baton and disregard the almost completely deaf composer. Beethoven, seated by the stage, set tempos at the start of each section, then turned pages and beat time for an orchestra he could no longer hear. Violinist Joseph Böhm later described the scene: Beethoven "threw himself back and forth like a madman," stretching to full height, then crouching to the floor, flailing hands and feet as though trying to play every instrument and sing every chorus part. The actual direction, Böhm noted, was in Louis Duport's hands.

Voices of the Premiere

The soprano part went to Henriette Sontag, who was just eighteen when the composer asked her to sing. The contralto was Caroline Unger, a Viennese native who had earned critical praise two years earlier in a Rossini role in Tancredi; after the Ninth, she went on to fame in Italy and Paris, with Bellini and Donizetti reportedly writing parts tailored to her voice. The tenor was Anton Haizinger and the bass/baritone was Joseph Seipelt. The performance itself, though a triumph, was not without rough edges—only two complete rehearsals had taken place, and witnesses suggested the execution was somewhat uneven. One of the most enduring anecdotes from the evening involves the applause. Testimonies differ on whether it occurred at the close of the scherzo or at the very end of the symphony, but the story is consistent: Beethoven, several bars behind the music, was still beating time when the audience erupted. Unger, the young contralto, walked over and gently turned the deaf composer around so he could face the cheering crowd. The critic for the Theater-Zeitung wrote that the public received "the musical hero with the utmost respect and sympathy."

From Vienna to the World Stage

The Ninth Symphony has secured a place among the most performed and most revered works in the Western classical canon. Critics and musicologists widely regard it as a masterpiece and one of the supreme achievements in musical history. Its influence extends far beyond the concert hall. In the twentieth century, an instrumental arrangement of the choral finale was adopted by the Council of Europe and subsequently by the European Union as the Anthem of Europe, giving the "Ode to Joy" melody a political and civic dimension that Beethoven could scarcely have imagined. The work's manuscript also carries extraordinary historical weight. Beethoven's original hand-written score, preserved in the Berlin State Library, was inscribed in 2001 on UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register, making it the first musical score ever to receive that distinction.