Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is a choral symphony, the final complete symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed between 1822 and 1824. It was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as a masterpiece of Western classical music and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music. One of the best-known works in common practice music, it stands as one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world.
The Ninth was the first example of a major composer scoring vocal parts in a symphony. The final movement of the symphony, commonly known as the Ode to Joy, features four vocal soloists and a chorus in the parallel key of D major. The text was adapted from the "An die Freude ", a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803, with additional text written 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, hand-written manuscript of the score, held by the Berlin State Library, was added by UNESCO to its Memory of the World International Register, becoming the first musical score so designated.

History

Composition

The Philharmonic Society of London originally commissioned the symphony in 1817. Beethoven made preliminary sketches for the work later that year with the key set as D minor and vocal participation also forecast. The main composition work was done between autumn, 1822 and the completion of the autograph in February, 1824. The symphony emerged from other pieces by Beethoven that, while completed works in their own right, are also in some sense forerunners of the future symphony. The Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, composed in 1808, basically an extended piano concerto movement, brings in a choir and vocal soloists for the climax. The vocal forces sing a theme first played instrumentally, and this theme is reminiscent of the corresponding theme in the Ninth Symphony.
Going further back, an earlier version of the Choral Fantasy theme is found in the song "Gegenliebe" for piano and high voice, which dates from before 1795. According to Robert W. Gutman, Mozart's Offertory in D minor, "Misericordias Domini", K. 222, written in 1775, contains a melody that foreshadows "Ode to Joy".

Premiere

Although most of Beethoven's major works had been premiered in Vienna, the composer planned to have his latest compositions performed in Berlin as soon as possible, as he believed he had fallen out of favor with the Viennese and the current musical taste was now dominated by Italian operatic composers such as Rossini. When his friends and financiers learned of this, they pleaded with Beethoven to hold the concert in Vienna, in the form of a petition signed by a number of prominent Viennese music patrons and performers.
Beethoven, flattered by the adoration of the Viennese, premiered the Ninth Symphony on 7 May 1824 in the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna along with the overture The Consecration of the House and three parts of the Missa solemnis. This was Beethoven's first onstage appearance since 1812 and the hall was packed with an eager and curious audience with a number of noted musicians and figures in Vienna including Franz Schubert, Carl Czerny, and the Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich.
The premiere of the Ninth Symphony involved an orchestra nearly twice as large as usual and required the combined efforts of the Kärntnertor house orchestra, the Vienna Music Society, and a select group of capable amateurs. While no complete list of premiere performers exists, many of Vienna's most elite performers are known to have participated.
The soprano and alto parts were sung by two famous young singers of the day, both recruited personally by Beethoven: Henriette Sontag and Caroline Unger. German soprano Henriette Sontag was 18 years old when Beethoven asked her to perform in the premiere of the Ninth. 20-year-old contralto Caroline Unger, a native of Vienna, had gained critical praise in 1821 appearing in Rossini's Tancredi. After performing in Beethoven's 1824 premiere, Unger then found fame in Italy and Paris. Italian opera composers Bellini and Donizetti were known to have written roles specifically for her voice. Anton Haizinger and Joseph Seipelt sang the tenor and bass/baritone parts, respectively.
Although the performance was officially conducted by Michael Umlauf, the theatre's Kapellmeister, Beethoven shared the stage with him. However, two years earlier, Umlauf had watched the composer's attempt to conduct a dress rehearsal for a revision of his opera Fidelio end in disaster. For the Ninth's premiere, he instructed the singers and musicians to ignore the almost completely 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 beating time for an orchestra he could not hear.
There are a number of anecdotes concerning the premiere of the Ninth. Based on the testimony of some of the participants, there are suggestions that the symphony was under-rehearsed and somewhat uneven in execution. On the other hand, the premiere was a great success. In any case, Beethoven was not to blame, as violinist Joseph Böhm recalled:

Beethoven himself conducted, that is, he stood in front of a conductor's stand and threw himself back and forth like a madman. At one moment he stretched to his full height, at the next he crouched down to the floor, he flailed about with his hands and feet as though he wanted to play all the instruments and sing all the chorus parts. – The actual direction was in Duport's hands; we musicians followed his baton only.

Reportedly, the scherzo was completely interrupted at one point by applause. Either at the end of the scherzo or the end of the symphony, Beethoven was several bars off and still conducting; the contralto Caroline Unger walked over and gently turned Beethoven around to accept the audience's cheers and applause. According to the critic for the Theater-Zeitung, "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 audience acclaimed him through standing ovations five times; there were handkerchiefs in the air, hats, and raised hands, so that Beethoven, who they knew could not hear the applause, could at least see the ovations.

Editions

The first German edition was printed by B. Schott's Söhne in 1826. The Breitkopf & Härtel edition dating from 1864 has been used widely by orchestras. In 1997, Bärenreiter published an edition by Jonathan Del Mar. According to Del Mar, this edition corrects nearly 3,000 mistakes in the Breitkopf edition, some of which were "remarkable". David Levy, however, criticized this edition, saying that it could create "quite possibly false" traditions. Breitkopf also published a new edition by Peter Hauschild in 2005.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for the following orchestra. These are by far the largest forces needed for any Beethoven symphony; at the premiere, Beethoven augmented them further by assigning two players to each wind part.
Woodwinds
Brass
Percussion
'''Strings'''

Form

The symphony is in four movements. The structure of each movement is as follows:

Movement	Tempo marking	Meter	Key
I	Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso = 88		d
II	Molto vivace = 116		d
II	Presto = 116		D
II	Molto vivace		d
II	Presto		D
III	Adagio molto e cantabile = 60		B
III	Andante moderato = 63		D
III	Tempo I		B
III	Andante moderato		G
III	Adagio		E-e-B
III	Lo stesso tempo		B
IV	Presto = 96		d
IV	Allegro assai = 80		D
IV	Presto		d
IV	Allegro assai		D
IV	Alla marcia; Allegro assai vivace = 84		B
IV	Andante maestoso = 72		G
IV	Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato = 84		D
IV	Allegro ma non tanto = 120		D
IV	Prestissimo = 132		D

Beethoven changes the usual pattern of Classical symphonies in placing the scherzo movement before the slow movement. This was the first time he did this in a symphony, although he had done so in some previous works, including the String Quartet Op. 18 no. 5, the "Archduke" piano trio Op. 97, the Hammerklavier piano sonata Op. 106. And Haydn, too, had used this arrangement in a number of his own works such as the String Quartet No. 30 in E major, as did Mozart in three of the Haydn Quartets and the G minor String Quintet.

I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso

The first movement is in sonata form without an exposition repeat. It begins with open fifths played pianissimo by tremolo strings. The opening, with its perfect fifth quietly emerging, resembles the sound of an orchestra tuning up, steadily building up until the first main theme in D minor at bar 17.
Before the development enters, the tremolous introduction returns. The development can be divided into four subdivisions, with adheres strictly to the order of themes. The first and second subdivisions are the development of bars 1–2 of the first theme . The third subdivision develops bars 3–4 of the first theme. The fourth subdivision that follows develops bars 1–4 of the second theme for three times: first in A minor, then to F major twice.
At the outset of the recapitulation in bar 301, the theme returns, this time played fortissimo and in D, rather than D. The movement ends with a massive coda that takes up nearly a quarter of the movement, as in Beethoven's Third and Fifth Symphonies.
A performance of the first movement typically lasts about 15 minutes.