Undoubtedly its message has been "neutered": over-performed, trivialized in movies and TV commercials, and often treated by musicians in purely musical terms rather than in humanistic ones. Those who revere the Ninth Symphony may be surprised to hear that some have resisted it now or at any time. Why? Because it is at once incomprehensible and irresistible, and because it is at once awesome and naive." This Symphony, Taruskin states, "is among connoisseurs preeminently the Piece You Love to Hate, no less now than a century and a half ago. In a penetrating essay, "Resisting the Ninth," music historian Richard Taruskin has pointed to ways in which some musicians and listeners have resisted the Ninth Symphony, embarrassed by what they consider its naive optimism. Schiller probably meant "Freiheit," but had to say "Freude." The original message had to be disguised in a time of political repression. This alteration was certainly appropriate given the circumstances what many in the audience may not have realized was that freedom exactly captures what the poem is about. Leading an international orchestra and chorus made up of musicians from east and west, Bernstein changed Schiller's text from an "Ode to Joy" (An die Freude) to an "Ode to Freedom" (An die Freiheit). Many will remember a remarkable world-wide broadcast of Leonard Bernstein performing the Ninth in Berlin on Christmas Day 1989, soon after the city's reuniting. There were many performances in the wake of 9/11, when the Ninth was once again enlisted for its universal and hopeful message. 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. The Ninth has also appeared on many solemn occasions. Its melody is the official anthem of the European Union. As the ultimate "feel good" piece, the Ninth has been used at various openings of the Olympic Games, bringing all nations together in song. For more than a century, the work has surfaced at crucial times and places. 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.īut composers were not the only ones to become deeply engaged with the Ninth, to struggle with its import and meaning. Mendelssohn, Mahler, and Shostakovich followed the model of a choral finale. Almost every Bruckner symphony begins in the manner of the Ninth-low string rumblings that seem to suggest the creation of a musical world. Schubert, who apparently attended the premiere, briefly quoted the "joy" theme in his own final symphony, written the following year. 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. On a more purely musical level, perhaps no other piece of music has exerted such an impact on later composers.
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. Through her heroic deeds he is rescued and tyranny exposed.įor 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). Years later, Beethoven struggled to write his lone opera, "Fidelio," which tells the story of a loving wife saving her husband, an unjustly jailed political prisoner. Beethoven's first large composition, written at the age of 19, was an impressive 40-minute cantata commemorating the death of Emperor Joseph II, who had done so much to liberalize the Austrian empire in the 1780s. He later followed political events closely in the newspapers and experienced war first hand when Napoleon's troops invaded Vienna in 18.
And that message is simple, almost embarrassingly naïve, one we learn as children: People should get along, we are all brothers and sisters.Īs a child of the Enlightenment, Beethoven grew up during the American and French revolutions. 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. 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.