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Beethoven's 9th
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a symphonic-choral blend that revolutionized the way composers approached their work in the 19th century. It prepared the way for future artists like Wagner and set the tone for the Romantic spring of classical music composition. Its ideological foundation is rooted in the Romantic "Ode to Joy" poem of Friedrich Schiller, penned in 1785 in celebration of the poet's sense-feeling of the universal fraternity of mankind. Fraternity was a notion much in vogue at the time (the French Revolution adopted it as one of its mantras), but Beethoven takes Schiller's idea and elevates in an almost spiritual way, delivering sections of the "Ode" in choral form in the final movement of the Ninth Symphony. But before getting there, Beethoven develops massive musical themes that explore that nature and impulse of humankind's mind and heart. This paper will provide a biography of Beethoven, a history of the composition, and a detailed description of the Ninth in order to show how Beethoven's last symphony is truly a work of greatness.
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770 and demonstrated great skills as a pianist at an early age. He tutored under Joseph Haydn as a young adult and thus his early works are similar in a sense to the works of Mozart who also worked with Haydn. But Beethoven quickly developed his own method...
Beethoven's music was experimental and unorthodox in many ways. His quartet pieces were like splintered works of fine art; as opposed to the more traditional compositional form of four movements, some of his later quartets are filled with movements, the tone of them as diverse and complex as the life of the mind. They are full of dissonance and clashes of sound that depict the violence that was tearing Europe apart at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. In this sense, Beethoven's music is representational. What is most remarkable, however, is that Beethoven was gradually going deaf during this time, and yet managed to compose some of the most beautiful music ever written -- such as the Ninth Symphony.
Beethoven began work on the Ninth Symphony in 1817 when it was first commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London (Solomon 251). For seven years, he composed, incorporating passages and themes from other works that he was writing at the same time. Thus, the four movements of the Symphony may be said to serve as stand-alone pieces -- but this would be nothing new for Beethoven. Many of his works feature movements that…
Works Cited
Cook, Nicholas. Beethoven's Ninth. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Levy, David. Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony. CT: Yale University Press, 2003.
Solomon, Maynard. Beethoven. NY: Shirmer Books, 1997.
7). It is the only symphony out of the nine for which Beethoven chose the key of a. In form, the symphony is not strikingly different from his previous six symphonies but the way in which the power and the beauty of thoughts have been treated gives it a unique "romantic" air. In the Finale, this 'romance' develops into "a vein of boisterous mirth" that had not been seen
Moreover, the scherzo arrives in the second movement and before instead of after the slow movement. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony's untraditional arrangement might have irked performers as well as critics. Although Beethoven was still venerated by the Viennese public, a follow-up performance of the Ninth Symphony was not well attended or well received. In fact, the second performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony brought in a shamefully small crowd: the venue was
...a symphony which could present its creator's image of the world," a concept which "lay at the heart of the Romantic revolution" and through which Beethoven "first brought Romanticism into Western music ("Ludwig Van Beethoven," Internet). Of course, it is Beethoven's momentous and magnificent Symphony no. 9, the Choral, which continues to thrill music lovers all over the world. This incredible piece of music stirs up a galaxy of human emotions,
Beethoven's style disturbed him, causing Beethoven to seek instruction elsewhere, including that of Mozart's rival Antonio Saleri ("Ludwig van Beethoven," the Columbia Encyclopedia, 2008). For awhile he lived in the aristocrat Prince Lichnowsky's mansion and began to secure fame as a 'dueling' piano player and composer. "Beethoven's rivals always retired, bloodied, from such combat. While he made enemies of many pianists in Vienna, the nobility flocked to hear him....
Beethoven: Greatest Hits CD is relatively self-explanatory. It is a compilation of many of the works that Beethoven created during his life and showcases the works that seem to be the most often heard or the most often discussed by music lovers and critics alike. The CD has only the works of Beethoven and does not contain a compilation of artists like many other classical music CDs, where there are
Classical Symphony Music, like other forms of art, evolved from numerous traditions that, when taken together, formed a new way of thinking about, and performing, certain types of works. Audiences change over time, and certain musical compositions that sound odd or strange to one audience are often accepted by others (e.g. The rioting during the premier of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring). When people think of classical music, for instance, they tend