Program Notes: Beethoven Symphony No. 9

Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 by Ludwig van Beethoven

The world of theatre has its superstitions. Don’t say “Macbeth” in the theater; call it “The Scottish Play.” Don’t whistle. Don’t say “good luck,” say “break a leg” to avert catastrophe. Well, classical music has its share of phantoms and bugaboos as well, perhaps none more serious than the dreaded “curse of the ninth.” Composers including the Czech master Antonín Dvořák, German wunderkind Franz Schubert, Austrian maestro Anton Bruckner, famous musicians all, perished not long after completing their ninth symphonies. This is a coincidence, but the curse didn’t start with them.

No, it began before, with the great Beethoven himself, whose Ninth Symphony and its legendary “Ode to Joy” is perhaps one of the best-known pieces of classical music in the world today. The symphony premiered in Vienna in 1824, and orchestras all around the world are celebrating the work’s 200th anniversary with great fanfare.

Beethoven’s Ninth begins in a contemplative, ambiguous musical key, though it quickly establishes itself in an angst-ridden D Minor. This is to contrast the radiant D Major key in which the symphony later concludes. The second movement is a scherzo. In Beethoven’s day, this was typically a light, flitting movement. Here, it is complex and layered, with shocking timpani crashes that interrupt the orchestra’s tiptoeing, cat-and-mouse main tune. The storm breaks in the adagio third movement, an elegant repast for the ears and a breezy transition to the glorious intensity of the finale.

This symphony is considered “classical” now, but at the time of its premiere, the Ninth was quite radical. The elephant in the room was Beethoven’s use of a chorus and vocal soloists in the final movement. (Others have imitated this idea, but he was the first to dare to do so.) The finale begins with a great tempest before yielding to the sunnier “Ode to Joy” melody, first in the orchestra alone. It’s when the stormy music of the opening abruptly returns that Beethoven bolsters the drama with human voices, soloists leaping into the fray to lend word and voice to the music, urging listeners to embrace brotherhood: “Oh friends, not these sounds! But let us sing more pleasantly, And more joyful ones! Joy!” (The chorus punctuates “Joy” — Freude in the German — with a resounding shout.) And then the famous tune takes off in earnest: “Joy, bright spark of divinity, Daughter of Elysium, Fire-inspired we tread, Within thy sanctuary.”

This is the famous symphony where the composer himself, stone deaf by this time, continued conducting the piece even after the musicians finished playing, and one of the musicians had to turn him around so that he could see the massive ovation that met his final symphony. One of the violinists in the orchestra, Joseph Böhm, wrote of the premiere:

“Beethoven himself conducted, that is, he stood in front of a 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. The actual direction was in the assistant conductor’s hands; we musicians followed his baton only.”

Aside from his deafness, Beethoven suffered from ill health most of his life, which infuses the triumph of his final symphony with additional meaning. He suffered from chronic hepatitis, jaundice, colitis, and more, and he died only a couple of years after the premiere of the ninth at the age of 56. (Remember the curse…) The Ninth remains one of the most consequential symphonic works in history, a testament to the powers of creativity, brotherhood, and goodwill.