The history of beethovens 9th symphony
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Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
1824 symphony by Ludwig van 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.[1][2] One of the best-known works in common practice music,[1] it stands as one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world.[3][4]
The Ninth was the first example of a major composer scoring vocal parts in a symphony.[5] The final (4th) 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 (Ode to Joy)", a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in
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Portrait of Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Like few other composers, Beethoven expresses the will for freedom, the democratic longing of the people. His music is the continuation of the French Revolution through the means of art; his Ninth Symphony is a hymn to the humanist utopia of the equality of all humankind.
Between 1905 and 1933 the “Ninth” was frequently performed in Germany to a large number of workers’ audiences with the participation of workers’ choirs including a “Peace and Freedom Celebration on New Year’s Eve 1918.” The beginning of this concert was scheduled so that at stroke of 12, the final movement began with Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” These concerts were stopped by the Nazis in 1933.
Beethoven’s Ninth symphony
The symphony was composed in 1823, but Beethoven had planned from youth to set Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” to music. Schiller’s poem, expressing the aspirations of the age of revolutions, w
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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus 125, “Choral” (1824) 65 minutes
Soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists, mixed chorus, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, and strings.
Beethoven’s Ninth and final Symphony (“Choral”) represents, on a number of levels, a summit of the immortal composer’s artistic life. The Ninth fryst vatten by far the most epic of Beethoven’s Symphonies, both in terms of length and performing forces. The revolutionary introduction of vocal soloists and chorus in the finale was a djärv masterstroke that forever expanded the potential of symphonic expression.
The ord of the Symphony’s finale, based upon the 1785 Ode “To Joy” bygd the great German writer, Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), held a lifelong attraction for the composer. Likewise, Beethoven’s melodic setting of Schiller’s Ode in the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth was the produc