Almost 200 years ago (May 7, 1824), Beethoven’s Ninth – and final – Symphony debuted, and yesterday I got a chance to hear it at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Carlisle. It took the combined efforts of three groups (the Dickinson College Choir, Cantate Carlisle, and the Dickinson Orchestra) to perform the famously monumental work, and the result was fantastic.
Beethoven’s Ninth has a poignant background. The composer was almost entirely deaf when he composed it, and he felt so put off by the direction Viennese music had taken that he nearly refused to perform it in the city which had been his base for most of his adulthood.
The origins of the Ninth might have begun as early as 1793 when, age 22, he got the idea of putting the poem “Ode to Joy” by Friedrich Schiller to choral music. The piece was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London in 1817, but Beethoven didn’t really get going on it until 1822.
The fruits of his labor were well worth it — the Ninth Symphony commanded an enhanced orchestra, as well as a 90-person chorus. Beethoven made a bold and new decision to blend choral and orchestral music together in the fourth (and last) movement of the symphony, the famous “Ode to Joy” so easily recognized worldwide.
When the Ninth premiered, Beethoven took part in the performance with animated movements. One contemporary wrote that “he stood in front of the 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 tragedy was that he could hear none of it. The orchestra and chorus were told to ignore him and pay attention to the actual conductor, and so Beethoven’s directions were actually off a few bars. When the music ended, the crowds roared with applause and standing ovations, but one of the soloists had to turn the composer to face the audience because he had not realized that his creation had been complete, and that his work was being so lauded.
Sources: In Motzart’s Footsteps, “The unique story of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” August 2, 2012, David Nelson
