Unveiling Beethoven's Ninth Symphony: A Journey Through History and Politics

 

Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony premiered on May 7, 1824, immediately captivating its audience. A critic in Vienna wrote after the musical event, "The performance was frequently interrupted by enthusiastic outbursts from the audience," which included prominent deaf composer present at the time. It was not anticipated then that this symphony would be regarded, 200 years later, as one of the most sublime works of European classical music, despite its tumultuous political past.

Ahead of its time

Mixed with enthusiasm for the premiere of the first symphony to feature singers in the history of music, some critics questioned whether Beethoven's setting of Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy" as the finale of the symphony was somewhat unconventional, suggesting that it might have been traditional to a certain extent. Conductor Martin Haselböck of the German Press Agency said, "Beethoven was considered an avant-gardist." Speaking about the composer's work, he said, "It was the most modern," Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770 and died in 1827 in his Vienna home.

Haselböck and his Vienna Academy Orchestra are known for performing classical music on historical instruments at original venues. However, the theater where the Ninth was first heard is no longer present. Haselböck and his ensemble will work on its 200th anniversary at the Historic Stadium Wuppertal on May 7 and 8. WDR aired the first musical program.

Behind the idea of international understanding and European unity, which is now associated with the symphony, is a TV program on Arte channel, which will explain the work's four movements on May 7 by four groups: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra of Paris, Orchestra dell'Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

A "Drinking Song" at the beginning

For his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven drew on a poem that was popular at the time and had been set to music by others before. Schiller wrote "Ode to Joy" in 1785, a few years before the French Revolution. It begins with the words "Joy, beautiful spark of divinity."

Beat Kross, Beethoven researcher at the Beethoven House in Bonn, said the song was a hit before Beethoven made it famous. He told DPA that it's not just revolutionary text responsible for it. This song of joy and friendship was also popular among student associations. Kross said, "It's just a drinking song."

Under the title "Ode to Joy," Schiller's verses became the main substance of the Ninth's finale. Kross said that since its premiere, Beethoven's path of talent and the complexity of this symphony have meant that various types of content have been attributed to it. A scientist said, "That's why everyone can choose what they like."

Music on Hitler's birthday and German-German songs

During the Nazi era, Beethoven's music was exploited. The Ninth Symphony was played around Adolf Hitler's birthday. In the GDR, the interpretation of the composer's work was explained among people as music of peace and friendship in a socialist sense. In 1952, a poster for the ninth performance in the Saxon city of Aue said, "Only through peace can we maintain our national cultural heritage."

"Ode to Joy" was also associated with Germany's division and reunification. In the 1950s and 1960s, it functioned as German song for all German teams at the Olympic Games, made up of Western and Eastern German athletes. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, star conductor Leonard Bernstein performed the Ninth in December 1989 in East and West Berlin with the rephrased text "Freedom, beautiful sparks of the gods."

Beethoven's handwritten music of the 19th century is kept on a large scale in the Berlin State Library. During World War II, separate storage locations emerged for different parts, coming to light after the war as a symbol of the post-war Western-Eastern situation. Only reunification brought Beethoven's music back together.

Beethoven as a fading tree and a source of energy

In the early 1970s, Herbert von Karajan transformed the complex Fourth Movement into a suitable song for the European Council with its incongruities, dramatic moods, and underlying tones for the public. Later, it became the anthem of the European Union. Consequently, Beethoven's melody also became a political source of irritation: for example, members of the British Brexit Party turned during the national anthem at the European Parliament into a performance in a critical and democratic vein. At the end of April, when the European anthem was played in celebration of the expansion of the European Union, some members of the right-wing and Eurosceptic group sat silently.

But you can also enjoy Beethoven's masterpiece. Many people do so in Japan, where the performance of the Ninth is greatly admired.