Program Notes: Beethoven Symphony No. 9
Symphony No. 9, Op. 125 in D Minor, Ludwig van Beethoven, born 16 December 1770 at Bonn; Died 26 March 1827 at Vienna.
Every opportunity one gets to perform or hear this colossal work is an occasion for celebration! What better way to end a season than this! No music in the repertoire plumbs the depths or reaches the heights like this masterpiece. It presents technical problems in every movement, since Beethoven was constantly requiring more and more of his symphonic forces. In addition, the problem of balance with the vocal forces is a new one here, as well as the extended range required of the chorus. Adding a chorus as a finale to a symphony was unprecedented, and it certainly created a stir in the music world. Composers have been freed by Beethoven's experiment, and have tried in other ways to use the voice in the symphonic context. The most successful has been Mahler, but many other composers have added choral movements to symphonies including Ives, Kabalevsky, Berlioz, Bernstein, Scriabin, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Shostakovich, and Mendelssohn.
Beethoven composed his first eight symphonies within a twelve-year period from 1800 to 1812. The world waited another twelve years before his gigantic choral work was completed. What distracted him, and what took him so long? Most critics agree that his everyday duties took him over, including two lawsuits (one with Maelzel over the commission for the Battle Symphony and another, the custody battle for his nephew, Karl) and revisions of earlier works. The sketchbooks of 1812, however, contain some early ideas for the symphony, but not until 1817 did the work totally occupy him. During the last few months of work on it, he began the Missa Solemnis.
Perhaps it was this confluence of musical ideas with one using a chorus that tempted Beethoven to utilize the chorus and soloists as a finale for the Ninth. At any rate, in 1822, he had selected the verses by Schiller to serve as the text for the choral portion. We take the choral finale for granted, and perhaps by now we are satisfied that this is the best climax of the masterpiece. However, as recently as 1929, none other than Philip Hale, the then music critic of the Boston Herald said "better to leave the hall with the memory of the Adagio than to depart with the vocal hurry-scurry and shouting of the final measures assailing our ears and nerves." It seems that many critics have shared Hale's point of view, but the audience, with a much better won-lost average than critics over time, have had very few negative reactions to the chorale finale!
Perhaps the best description of the work comes from one of Beethoven's greatest admirers, Richard Wagner:
First Movement -- A struggle, conceived in the greatest grandeur of the soul contending for happiness against the oppression of that inimical power which places itself between us and joys of earth appears to be the basis of the first movement. The great principal theme, which at the very beginning issues forth bare and mighty, as it were, from a mysteriously hiding veil, might be transcribed not altogether inappropriately to the meaning of the whole tone poem, in Goethe's words: "Renounce, thou must-Renounce!"
Second Movement -- Wild delight seizes us at once with the first rhythms of the second movement. It is a new world which we enter, one in which we are carried away to dizzy intoxication. With the abrupt entrance of the middle part, there is suddenly disclosed to us a scene of worldly joy and happy contentment. A certain cheerfulness seems to address itself to us in the simple, oft-expressed theme.
Third Movement -- How differently these tones speak to our hearts! How pure, how celestially soothing they are as they melt defiance, the wild impulse of the soul harassed by despair into soft, melancholy feeling! It is as if memory awoke within us- the memory of an early enjoyed, purest happiness. With this recollection, a sweet longing, too, comes over us, which is expressed so beautifully in the second theme of the movement.
Fourth Movement -- A harsh outcry begins the transition from the third to the fourth movement, a cry of disappointment at not attaining the contentment so earnestly sought. Then, with the beginning of the Ode, we hear clearly expressed what must appear to the anxious seeker for happiness as the highest lasting pleasure."
As fine and evocative as Wagner's words are, they pale by comparison to the actual effect the music has on the listener. Beethoven struggled mightily to introduce the choral portion of the work, with its new stylistic and artistic problems. Schindler, a long-time friend writes in a letter "When he reached the development of the fourth movement, there began a struggle such as is seldom seen. The object was to find a proper manner of introducing Schiller's Ode. One day on entering the room, he exclaimed, 'I have it, I have it!' With that he showed me his sketch book bearing the words "Let us sing of the immortal Schiller, An die Freude.'" The solution, we must all agree, was perfect!
The work is scored for two flutes (plus piccolo), two oboes, clarinets, and bassoon (plus contra bassoon), four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, percussion, and string choir. The work was last performed in 2000 at these concerts.
George Zack
January, 2008
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