50 Fun Facts About Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

In which key is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony written?

D minor opens the symphony, but the finale breaks through into D major, the key in which the Ode to Joy melody finally rings out.

Which animal does the Ode to Joy calm in the Beatles film Help!?

Tiger: a Scotland Yard superintendent says the Ode will calm it, so the singing starts and soon spreads far beyond the pub.

Which poet wrote the text that Beethoven set in the finale?

Friedrich Schiller's ode was one the young Beethoven planned to set stanza by stanza, yet three decades later the finale used only selected parts of it.

What was Beethoven's Ninth the first symphony by a major composer to include?

Singers were a first for a major composer's symphony, yet as late as 1823 Beethoven's sketches were still weighing an instrumental finale instead.

Before EU leaders took it up in 1985, which body first adopted the Ode to Joy as Europe's anthem?

The Council of Europe's anthem has no words, and it isn't meant to replace member countries' national anthems but to celebrate the values they share.

In 2001, Beethoven's handwritten score of the Ninth was added to which UNESCO register?

Memory of the World took in a score that World War II had scattered, with parts ending up in Kraków, East Berlin and West Berlin before reuniting in 1997.

Which organisation commissioned Beethoven's Ninth Symphony?

The Philharmonic Society of London commissioned it, yet the premiere took place in Vienna, and Londoners first heard the work only in 1825.

Which 1808 Beethoven work did he tell publishers the Ninth's finale resembled, only on a far grander scale?

Choral Fantasy reworked a tune from 'Gegenliebe', a song Beethoven had written around 1795, and he later pointed publishers to it to explain the Ninth's finale.

Which Italian opera composer's craze made Beethoven feel Vienna's audiences had turned away from him?

Rossini's operas drew Vienna's crowds, so prominent patrons and performers signed a petition urging Beethoven to give his new works their first hearing there.

In which Vienna theatre did the Ninth premiere?

Theater am Kärntnertor hosted the triumph, yet a repeat later that month in the Hofburg's Great Redoutensaal left the hall not half full and lost money.

What did the Ninth's soloists beg Beethoven for?

Easier high notes, they pleaded, but Beethoven would change nothing. At the concert, those who couldn't reach the top notes simply left them out, and the deaf composer could not tell.

Which singer turned the deaf Beethoven around so he could see the audience's applause?

Caroline Unger, the contralto soloist, tugged his sleeve and pointed to the waving hats and handkerchiefs; accounts differ on whether this came after the scherzo or at the very end.

Who officially conducted the premiere while Beethoven shared the stage?

Michael Umlauf had seen Beethoven's attempt to conduct a Fidelio dress rehearsal collapse two years earlier, so he told the orchestra and chorus to ignore the deaf composer's beat and follow his own.

Which work did the Ninth's premiere call 'hymns'?

Missa solemnis could not be named on the bill because Vienna's censor objected to a mass sung in a theatre, so its Kyrie, Credo and Agnus Dei were announced as three grand hymns.

Who reportedly called for silence at the Ninth's premiere?

The police commissioner stepped in at the fifth burst of applause, when even the imperial family customarily got only three; Beethoven's aide Schindler told him the reception was more than imperial.

Which famous composer is believed to have attended the Ninth's 1824 premiere?

Franz Schubert is believed to have been in the hall; three years later he walked as a torchbearer at Beethoven's funeral.

To whom was the Ninth Symphony dedicated?

Frederick William III of Prussia sent thanks and promised a diamond ring; Beethoven's aide Schindler says the ring that arrived held a cheap reddish stone, which the indignant composer sold.

Which Kubrick film's antihero worships Beethoven's Ninth?

A Clockwork Orange has Alex conditioned with violent films set to Beethoven, so the music he worshipped makes him ill, and a former victim later blasts the Ninth through the floor to torment him.

What unusual ordering did Beethoven use for the Ninth's middle movements?

The scherzo precedes the slow movement, reversing the usual order, so the serene Adagio runs straight into the finale's stormy opening outburst.

The Ninth's first movement begins with which intervals, played by hushed tremolo strings like an orchestra tuning up?

Open fifths on A and E leave out the note that would tell the ear major from minor, so the hushed opening hangs in doubt until the full orchestra crashes in.

Which instruments play for the very first time in the Ninth when the scherzo's trio arrives?

Trombones sit silent through the whole first movement and the scherzo proper, sound in the trio, then wait out the slow movement until the finale needs them.

After its hammer-blow opening, the Ninth's scherzo launches its main theme as what?

A fugue launches it, each string section entering four bars after the last. At the premiere the crowd reportedly burst into applause mid-movement at the startling solo drum strokes.

Why did a 1918 New Year's Eve Ninth in Leipzig start at 11 p.m.?

To reach its chorus at midnight: Arthur Nikisch timed the Ode to Joy to open the first new year after World War I, and year-end Ninths became a Leipzig tradition.

Which instruments first play the Ode to Joy theme in full, hushed and unaccompanied, in the Ninth's finale?

Cellos and double basses murmur the great tune alone, almost too quietly to hear, before violas, violins and at last the full orchestra pile on in three swelling variations.

Which voice is the first to sing in Beethoven's Ninth?

Baritone: the soloist breaks in with words Beethoven wrote himself, 'O friends, not these sounds!', before a single line of the famous poem is heard.

What does the Ninth's finale recall and drop before the Joy tune?

Its earlier movements each return for a few bars, only to be waved away by a gruff wordless recitative, as if the orchestra were hunting for the right tune.

Which style of music appears in the Alla marcia section of the Ninth's finale, complete with a tenor solo?

Turkish percussion, bass drum, cymbals and triangle, jangles in just after the chorus's awestruck vision of God, dropping the finale from heaven to earth for the tenor's jaunty march.

Which opera composer admired the Ninth's first three movements but called the last 'very badly set' for voices?

Verdi called the Ninth 'the alpha and omega' in an 1878 letter, yet warned that lesser composers would cite Beethoven's authority to excuse writing just as badly for voices.

Which conductor had a Dresden stage rebuilt so the Ninth's chorus rose in tiers around the orchestra?

Richard Wagner had the platform rebuilt for his 1846 Palm Sunday concert so the chorus rose in tiers around the players, a layout he proudly called a new system of his own.

In which action film does the Ode to Joy blare as thieves finally crack a Los Angeles skyscraper's vault?

Die Hard's director asked for the hymn to joy as villain Hans Gruber's theme, so the score teases it in sinister fragments until it thunders out in full when the vault swings open.

Which orchestra gave the American premiere of the Ninth in 1846?

New York Philharmonic, then barely four years old, staged it at Castle Garden on Manhattan's southern tip, hoping the takings would pay for a concert hall of its own.

Which festival theatre's founder conducted the Ninth in 1872 to mark the laying of its foundation stone?

Bayreuth Festspielhaus got its foundation stone on its founder's 59th birthday, celebrated with the Ninth in the town's old opera house. The first festival after World War II opened with the same work.

What word did Bernstein substitute for Freude (Joy) at his 1989 Berlin concert celebrating the fall of the Wall?

Freiheit (Freedom) rang out on Christmas Day 1989 from musicians drawn from both sides of the fallen Wall and from the US, Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

Which conductor led the Ode to Joy at the 1998 Winter Olympics with choirs singing live from five continents?

Seiji Ozawa conducted in Nagano while choirs in Beijing, Berlin, Cape Town, New York and Sydney joined in by satellite, using a system built to cancel the usual transmission delay.

Which new state marked its 2008 independence with the Ode to Joy?

Kosovo's philharmonic played Beethoven's tune, already the anthem of Europe, on independence day in February 2008, and it stood in as the national anthem until Kosovo adopted its own.

According to legend, the CD's 74-minute length was set to fit which conductor's 1951 recording of the Ninth?

Furtwängler's 1951 Bayreuth performance runs 74 minutes, and the story credits a Sony executive who wanted it on one disc. A Philips engineer calls that a myth: the size was a corporate compromise.

Which NBC news programme used the opening of the Ninth's second movement as its theme from 1956 to 1970?

The Huntley-Brinkley Report signed off each night to those pounding bars, lifted from Toscanini's 1952 recording with the network's own NBC Symphony Orchestra.

From 1956 to 1964, the Ode to Joy served as the Olympic anthem for the combined team of which divided country?

Germany sent one team from East and West, and since the two states had rival anthems, medal winners heard Beethoven as the compromise. Even as separate teams in 1968 they still shared the tune.

Which Henry van Dyke hymn is sung to the great tune from Beethoven's Ninth?

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee came to van Dyke in 1907 while he was guest preacher at Williams College, inspired by the Berkshire mountains. A gospel version later became the finale of the film Sister Act 2.

How was the Ninth Symphony first introduced to Japan, where it became a December tradition?

German prisoners of war held at the Bandō camp during World War I gave Japan its first performance. Daiku, as the Japanese call it, now draws massed choirs of up to 10,000 voices each December.

What did Brahms reportedly reply when told his First Symphony's big tune resembled the Ode to Joy?

'Any fool can see that!' was his reputed retort, since he meant the echo as open homage, not theft. His First was both praised and mocked as Beethoven's Tenth.

Which Danish composer stopped at eight symphonies and is said to have explained, 'There is only one ninth'?

Niels Gade premiered his eighth in 1871 and lived until 1890 without adding another. The remark attributed to him was a bow to Beethoven.

According to Schoenberg, which composer's superstition gave rise to the 'curse of the ninth'?

Mahler gave his ninth symphonic work a title, Das Lied von der Erde, instead of a number. He then wrote a numbered Ninth anyway and died with his Tenth unfinished.

Before its poet revised the line to 'All men become brothers', which group became 'princes' brothers' in the Ode to Joy?

Beggars becoming the brothers of princes was the first wording. Beethoven seems to have half-remembered it in a sketch as 'princes are beggars', though the text he finally set has all men as brothers.

How did the Ode to Joy's own author come to regard the poem later in life?

As a failure: in an 1800 letter to the friend who had inspired it, he called the ode a bad poem that had caught on only because it suited the faulty taste of its time.

Which conductor was asked to make the official arrangements of the European Anthem in 1972?

Herbert von Karajan wrote three versions, for solo piano, for wind instruments and for full orchestra, and conducted the official recording himself.

How did blacklisted singer Paul Robeson perform the Ode to Joy for Welsh miners in 1957?

Over a transatlantic telephone line: his US passport had been revoked over his politics, so the miners' eisteddfod in Porthcawl heard him live from across the ocean instead.

In the Ode to Joy's opening lines, Joy is hailed as the 'daughter' of which mythical paradise?

Elysium, the home of the blessed dead in Greek myth, is named in the poem's second line, 'Tochter aus Elysium', words the chorus comes back to as the symphony ends.

In what language was the choral finale sung at the 1825 British premiere in London?

Italian words, added in London, carried the finale under Sir George Smart, who travelled to Vienna later that year to get the right tempos from Beethoven in person.

Which country used the Ode to Joy melody as its national anthem from 1974 to 1979?

Rhodesia, the breakaway state led by Ian Smith, set new words to Beethoven's tune as Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia, just two years after it had become the anthem of Europe.