Symphony No. 9 in D minor (‘Choral’)

Symphony No.9 in D minor, Op.125 (“Choral”)

Allegro, ma non troppo, un poco maestoso

Molto vivace - presto - molto vivace

Adagio molto e cantabile - andante moderato - tempo 1

Finale

Beethoven had long intended to compose a setting of Schiller’s Ode to Joy - since 1793 at the latest. In 1811 he seems to have thought of incorporating fragments of it in an overture. That would have been unconventional enough. But the idea of making his setting the finale of a symphony bigger than even he had imagined before was one of the boldest of all artistic inspirations.

He did, however, have two very substantial advantages: he had the right tune and he had a model for the structure. The tune he had used first in 1795 in a song called Gegenliebe and then again, more significantly, as a theme for variations in the Choral Fantasy of 1808. In 1823, when he came to write the choral Finale of the Ninth Symphony, he knew that this was just the melody he needed. The structure he had already designed for the Fifth Symphony, which moves out of a fate-ridden C minor to a triumphant C major. The Ninth Symphony follows the same kind of course, from a desolate D minor to a joyful D major.

So the first movement of the “Choral” symphony is not joyful. Its first melodic statement, the whole orchestra striding heavily down a triad of D minor, is all the more crushing after the tonally and emotionally indeterminate beginning, which could have led anywhere. The rest of the movement might almost have been carved out of stone. Some of the motifs in the second-subject group, introduced in B flat major by the woodwind, are more fluent, but their lines rarely extend far and are usually cut off by decisive verticals in the strings or brass. The development, beginning with a renewal of the distant open fifths from the opening bars of the movement, is built on similarly uncompromising contrasts of texture. But, just before the end of the movement, there is a quickly suppressed but unmistakable expression of hope in a radiantly happy D major version of the main theme on first horn.

That glimpse of D major happiness is extended in the pastoral delights of the middle section of the next movement. The outer sections of the scherzo are more intense - a breathlessly hectic fugue in D minor and a reckless second subject in C major, which latter does however project itself into D major one point.

Not the least remarkable aspect of the Ninth Symphony is that both the last two movement are constructed as variations, but in each case variations with a difference. The peculiarity of the slow movement is that it consists of an Adagio melody and two variations but with quite new and unrelated material interpolated in a rather quicker Andante tempo just before and just after the first variation. The Adagio theme, perhaps because of the two bars of introduction on bassoons and clarinets, seems to combine a hint of pathos with its B flat major serenity. The function of the Andante material, which makes its first appearance in D major on second violins and violas, is to develop the hope of happiness glimpsed at the end of the first movement and celebrated in the middle of the second. The long-term implications of the Andante melody in D major, which is simply set aside during the second half of the movement, are deliberately left unfulfilled.

That is where the last movement comes in. But, Beethoven must have asked himself, exactly how would it come in? The main part of the Finale, the D major setting of Schiller’s Ode to Joy, he wrote first. The problem was to make a natural transition, for the first time in a symphony, from orchestral to vocal music. One thing which seems to have helped him was his experience of concerto form.

Certainly, the beginning of the Finale has elements of the concerto exposition in it. First of all, there is the orchestral version - the shattering outburst on wind instruments, harder than the stoniest parts of the first movement, the protesting recitative on cellos and basses, the din and recitative repeated, then fragments of first, second, and third movements, each one of which is rejected by the instrumental recitative, and, at last, a suggestion of a new D major melody, which is warmly greeted by the recitative and presented in full by the orchestra. Next there is the solo exposition - the shattering outburst and the bass soloist’s recitative in words which, already instrumentally outlined, seem perfectly natural now that they are vocally produced. The bass soloist cuts short the introductory process when, echoing the last part of the orchestral exposition, he calls for something “more joyful.” Woodwind oblige with their hint of the D major theme, the bass takes it up in the definitive version, and the vocal finale has begun.

The variations are not formally separated or balanced in length. The soloists’ ornate version of the theme at Freude trinken alle Wesen must be counted as the first variation; the grotesque inspiration of the Turkish-style military march with the heroic tenor solo is a second; the double fugue on the same theme combined with another variant is a third variation. Splendidly sustained though that instrumental fugue is, the greatest example of fugue comes later, after a comparatively simple orchestral variation and an Andante maestoso section in G major (Seid umschlungen, Millionen) with a solemn new theme intoned by the chorus supported by three trombones. The following fugue combines the new theme, now in D major, with a fifth variation of the Joy theme.

That sublime and severe test of the choral voices, ending with its magically hushed intimation of joyful immortality, is the climax of the whole work. The rest is celebration and coda - the happy round for soloists followed by the chorus, the brief but ecstatic B major vision of human brotherhood for the solo quartet, the acceleration into the overjoyed choral Prestissimo, the suddenly expansive embrace of the Tochter aus Elysium, and the final Prestissimo for orchestra alone.