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The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 "Choral" is the last complete Symphony composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven . Completed in 1824, the Ninth Symphony is one of the best known works of the Western repertoire, considered both an icon and a forefather of Romantic Music , and one of Beethoven's greatest masterpieces. By the time the composer began work on the symphony, he was completely deaf. Symphony No. 9 incorporates part of the ''Ode an die Freude'' (" Ode To Joy "), a poem by Friedrich Schiller , with text sung by Soloist s and a Chorus in the last movement. It is the first example of a major composer using the human voice on the same level with instruments in a symphony, creating a work of a grand scope that set the tone for the Romantic symphonic form. The symphony was first published with the German title "Sinfonie mit Schlusschor über Schillers Ode 'An die Freude' für großes Orchester, 4 Solo und 4 Chorstimmen componiert und seiner Majestät dem König von Preußen Friedrich Wilhelm III in tiefster Ehrfurcht zugeeignet von Ludwig van Beethoven, 125 tes Werk"; however, it is more commonly called the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 or the "Choral" symphony. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 plays a prominent cultural role in the world today. In particular, the music from the fourth movement (Ode to Joy) was rearranged by Herbert Von Karajan into what is now known as the official Anthem of the European Union . Further testament to its prominence is that an original manuscript of this work sold in 2003 for $3.3 million USD at Sotheby's , London . The Head of the Manuscripts Department, Dr. Stephen Roe stated, "it is one of the highest achievements of man ranking alongside Shakespeare's Hamlet and King Lear ." HISTORY Writing of the symphony The Philharmonic Society of London (later the Royal Philharmonic Society ) originally commissioned the symphony in 1817. Beethoven supposedly started work on his last symphony in 1818 and finished it early in 1824. This was roughly twelve years after his eighth symphony. However, Beethoven started working on this piece much earlier. Beethoven wanted to set the ''Ode an die Freude'' to music as early as 1793. He did that as a piece, but unfortunately that piece has been lost forever. The theme for the scherzo can be traced back to a fugue written in 1815. The introduction for the vocal part of the symphony caused many difficulties for Beethoven. Indeed it was the first time he had used a vocal component in one of his symphonies. Beethoven's friend, Anton Schindler , later said: "When he started working on the fourth movement the struggle began as never before. The aim was to find an appropriate way of introducing Schiller's ode. One day he {Link without Title} entered the room and shouted 'I got it, I just got it!' Then he showed me a sketchbook with the words 'let us sing the ode of the immortal Schiller'". However, that introduction did not make it into the work, and Beethoven spent a great deal of time rewriting the part until it had reached the form recognizable today. Premiere Beethoven was eager to have his work played in Berlin as soon as possible after finishing it. He was thinking that musical taste in Vienna was dominated by Italian composers such as Rossini . When his friends and financiers heard this, they urged him to Premiere the symphony in Vienna . The Ninth Symphony was premiered on and Caroline Unger . Although the performance was officially directed by Michael Umlauf, the theatre's Kapellmeister , Beethoven, shared the stage with him. However two years earlier, Umlauf had watched as the composer's attempt to conduct a dress rehearsal of his opera '' Fidelio '' ended in disaster. So this time, he instructed the singers and musicians to ignore the totally deaf Beethoven. At the beginning of every part, Beethoven, who sat by the stage, gave the Tempo s. He was turning the pages of his Score and was beating time for an Orchestra he could not hear. There are a number of anecdotes about the premiere of the Ninth. Based on the testimony of the participants, there are suggestions that it was under-rehearsed (there were only two full rehearsals) and rather scrappy in execution. On the other hand, the premiere was a big success. In any case, Beethoven was not to blame, as violist Josef Bohm recalled, "Beethoven directed the piece himself; that is, he stood before the lectern and gesticulated furiously. At times he raised, at other times he shrunk to the ground, he moved as if he wanted to play all the instruments himself and sing for the whole chorus. All the musicians minded his rhythm alone while playing". When the audience applauded - testimonies differ over whether at the end of the Scherzo or the whole symphony - Beethoven was several measures off and still conducting. Because of that, the Contralto Caroline Unger walked over and turned Beethoven around to accept the audience's cheers and applause. According to one witness, "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 whole audience acclaimed him through Standing Ovation s five times; there were handkerchiefs in the air, hats, raised hands, so that Beethoven, who could not hear the applause, could at least see the ovation gestures. The theatre house had never seen such enthusiasm in applause. At that time, it was customary that the Imperial couple be greeted with three ovations when they entered the hall. The fact that five ovations were received by a private person who was not even employed by the state, and moreover, was a musician (a class of people who had been perceived as lackeys at court), was in itself considered almost indecent. Police agents present at the concert had to break off this spontaneous explosion of ovations. Beethoven left the concert deeply moved. The repeat performance on May 23 in the great hall of the Fort was, however, poorly attended. There was much negative criticism of the symphony and its "dissonances" at the time. INSTRUMENTATION The symphony is scored for Piccolo (fourth movement only), 2 Flute s, 2 Oboe s, 2 Clarinet s in B-flat and C, 2 Bassoon s, Contrabassoon (fourth movement only), 2 Horns (1 and 2) in D and B-flat, 2 Horns (3 and 4) in B-flat (bass), B-flat and E-flat, 2 Trumpet s in D and B-flat, 3 Trombone s (alto, tenor, and bass, second and fourth movements only), Timpani , Triangle (fourth movement only), Cymbal s (fourth movement only), Bass Drum (fourth movement only), and strings. The vocal parts consist of Soprano solo, Alto solo, Tenor solo, Baritone solo, and Choir in four parts (soprano, alto, tenor briefly into Tenor I and Tenor II and bass). Note: 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. FORM The symphony is in four movements, marked as follows: # Allegro ma non troppo, un poco Maestoso # Molto Vivace # Adagio molto e Cantabile # : (''Freude, schöner Götterfunken'' – ''Seid umschlungen, Millionen!'') – Allegro ma non tanto: ''Freude, Tochter aus Elysium!'' – Prestissimo: ''Seid umschlungen, Millionen!'' Beethoven adopts the slightly unusual pattern of Classical symphonies in placing the Scherzo movement before the slow movement. This was the first time that he did this in a symphony, although he had done so in some previous works (including the Quartets Op. 18 nos. 4 and 5, the "Archduke" Piano Trio Op. 97, the "Hammerklavier" piano sonata Op. 106). Haydn, too, had used this arrangement in a number of works. First movement The first movement is in Sonata Form , and the mood is often stormy. The opening theme is played ''pianissimo'' over string tremolandos. This first subject later returns ''fortissimo'' at the outset of the Recapitulation section, in D major, rather than the opening's D minor. The coda employs the Chromatic Fourth interval. This is the first appearance of a quartet of Horns in a Beethoven symphony. Second movement The second movement, a Scherzo , is also in D minor, with the opening theme bearing a passing resemblance to the opening theme of the first movement, a pattern also found in the Hammerklavier piano sonata, written a few years earlier. It uses propulsive rhythms and a Timpani solo. At times during the piece Beethoven directs that the beat should be one downbeat every three bars, perhaps because of the very fast pace of the majority of the movement which is written in triple time, with the direction ''ritmo di tre battute'' ("rhythm of three bars"), and one beat every four bars with the direction ''ritmo di quattro battute'' ("rhythm of four bars"). The contrasting trio section is in D major and in duple (cut) time. The trio is the first time the Trombone s play in the work. Third movement The lyrical slow movement, in B flat major, is in a loose Variation form, with each pair of variations progressively elaborating the rhythm and melody. The first variation, like the theme, is in 4/4 time, the second in 12/8. The variations are separated by passages in 3/4, the first in D major, the second in G major. The final variation is twice interrupted by episodes in which loud fanfares for the full orchestra are answered by double-stopped octaves played by the first violins alone. A virtuosic Horn solo is assigned to the fourth player. Trombone s are Tacet for the movement. Fourth movement You can find a longer version on EU website The famous choral Finale has been characterized by Charles Rosen as a symphony within a symphony, containing four movements played without interruption.Rosen, Charles. "The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven". page 440. New York: Norton, 1997. This "inner symphony" follows the same overall pattern as the Ninth Symphony as a whole. The scheme is as follows:
The movement has a thematic unity, in which every part may be shown to be based on either the main theme, the "Seid umschlungen" theme, or some combination of the two. The first "movement within a movement" itself is organized into sections:
Text of fourth movement Words written by Beethoven (not Schiller ) are shown in italics. INFLUENCE OF THE SYMPHONY The Ninth Symphony struck the changing and newly Romantic world of Western music with force. Partially due to the scope, ambition, and import of this work, Beethoven is considered the forefather of Romantic music. His Symphony No. 9 was to prove extremely influential on the Western tradition, not just in specific compositional form (and length), but in much more general ways, for its forging of new ground beyond the Classical symphonic mould of purely "absolute Music" . It is an early icon and declaration of the Romantic idealistic tradition of Bildung . Many later composers of the Romantic period and beyond were influenced specifically by Beethoven's final symphony: An important theme in the finale of Johannes Brahms ' Symphony No. 1 In C Minor is related to the "Ode to Joy" theme from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth symphony. When this was pointed out to Brahms, he is reputed to have retorted "Any fool can see that!", which suggests the imitation was intentional. Brahms's first symphony was sometimes jokingly referred to as "Beethoven's Tenth". (Brahms happened to be born on the ninth anniversary of the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth symphony.) Anton Bruckner used the Chromatic Fourth in his Third Symphony in much the same way that Beethoven used it in the first movement's coda. In the opening notes of the third movement of his Symphony No. 9 (The 'New World' Symphony), Antonín Dvořák pays homage to the Scherzo of this symphony with his falling fourths and timpani strokes.Steinberg, Michael. "The Symphony: a listeners guide". page 153. Oxford University Press, 1995. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony also influenced the development of the Compact Disc . Philips , the company that had started the work on the new audio format, originally planned for a CD to have a diameter of 11.5 cm (needed for one hour of music). But when Sony , the other company involved, insisted in 1979 that it should be possible for one disc to contain the entire Ninth, the diameter was increased to 12 cm to allow 74 minutes of recording; the longest recording of the symphony in the archives of Philips' recording company PolyGram was 74 minutes. How the CD was developed , BBC News Roll over, Beethoven , Snopes THE CURSE OF THE NINTH Using modern numbering, several composers beside Beethoven have completed no more than nine symphonies. This has led certain subsequent composers, particularly Gustav Mahler , to be superstitious about composing their own ninth or tenth symphonies, or to try to avoid writing them at all. This phenomenon has become known as the Curse Of The Ninth . PERFORMING THE SYMPHONY Lasting more than an hour, the Ninth was an exceptionally long symphony for its time. Like much of Beethoven's later music, his Ninth Symphony is demanding for all the performers, including the choir and soloists. Beethoven's own Metronome markings for his Ninth Symphony are controversial. Historically, conductors have tended to take a slower tempo than Beethoven marked for the slow movement, and a faster tempo for the military march section of the finale. Conductors in the historically informed performance movement, notably Roger Norrington , have used Beethoven's suggested tempos, to mixed reviews. NINTH SYMPHONY SINCE THE 19TH CENTURY The Ninth Symphony has frequently been incorporated into film scores, television, and popular music.
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