The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

Bass nicht diese Töne fröhlichere
Voce Freude! Freude
(“not these tones, more joyful ones”)

The entire Symphony was finished in sketch-form at the end of 1823 and written out in score in February, 1824. Omitting from consideration the theme of the second movement, noted in 1815 and again in 1817 (probably with an entirely different purpose in mind), the time which elapsed between the beginning of the first movement (1817-1818) and the time of completion was about six and a half years. Within this period, however, there were extended interruptions caused by other works. Serious and continuous labor on the Symphony was not taken up until after the completion of the Missa solemnis; it began in 1822, occupied the greater part of 1823 and ended in the early part of 1824. Beethoven, therefore, worked on the Symphony a little more than a year.

Instrumental and Vocal Parts United

Those who cherish the fantastic notion that the Symphony was conceived ab initio as a celebration of joy, and therefore feel obliged to go back to Beethoven’s first design to compose music for Schiller’s ode, have a large territory for the play of their fancy. Beethoven formed the plan of setting the ode while still living in Bonn in 1793. It is heard of again in a sketchbook of 1798, where there is a melodic phrase adapted to the words, “Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.” Amongst sketches for the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies (say in 1811) there crops up a melody for the beginning of the hymn, and possibly a little later (1812) a more extended sketch amongst material used in the Overture, Op. 115, into which he appears at one time to have thought of introducing portions of it. All these sketches, of course, preceded the melody of 1812, conceived for use in a “Sinfonie allemand.” When Beethoven first took up the ode for setting it was to become a “durchkomponirtes Lied,” i. e., each stanza was to have an illustrative setting; when he planned to incorporate it in an overture he proposed to use only selected portions of the poem, for he accompanies the melodic sketch with the note: “Disjointed fragments like Princes are beggars, etc., not the whole”; and a little later: “disjointed fragments from Schiller’s Freude connected into a whole.”[110]

The questions which have been raised by the choral finale are many and have occupied the minds of musicians, professional and amateur, ever since the great symphony was first given to the world. In 1852 Carl Czerny told Otto Jahn that Beethoven had thought, after the performance, of composing a new finale without vocal parts for the work. Schindler[111] saw the note in Jahn’s papers and wrote in the margin: “That is not true”; but it must be remembered that there was a cessation of the great intimacy between Beethoven and Schindler which began not long after the Symphony had been produced, and lasted almost till Beethoven was on his deathbed. Schindler can not have been present at all of the meetings between Beethoven and his friends at which the Symphony was discussed. Nevertheless he is upheld, in a measure, by the fact (to which Nottebohm directed attention) that Beethoven, if he made the remark, either did not mean it to be taken seriously or afterwards changed his mind; for after keeping the manuscript in his hands six months he sent it to the publisher as we have it. Seyfried, writing in “Cäcilia” (Vol. IX, p. 236), faults Beethoven for not having taken the advice of well-meaning friends and written a new finale as he did for the Quartet in B-flat, Op. 130. Even if one of the well-meaning friends was Seyfried himself, the statement has value as evidence that Beethoven was not as convinced as Czerny’s story would have it appear that the choral finale was a mistake. Sonnleithner, in a letter to the editor of the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung” in 1864, confirmed Jahn’s statement by saying that Czerny had repeatedly related as an unimpeachable fact that some time after the first performance of the Symphony Beethoven, in a circle of his most intimate friends, had expressed himself positively to the effect that he perceived that he had made a mistake (Misgriff) in the last movement and intended to reject it and write an instrumental piece in its stead, for which he already had an idea in his head. What that idea was the reader knows. That Beethoven may have had scruples touching the appropriateness of the choral finale, is comprehensible enough in view of the fact that the original plan of the Symphony contemplated an instrumental close and that Beethoven labored so hard to establish arbitrarily an organic union between the ode and the first three movements; but it is not likely that he gave long thought to the project of writing a new finale. He had witnessed the extraordinary demonstration of delight with which the whole work had been received and he may have found it as easy as some of his commentators to believe that his device for presenting the choral finale as the logical and poetically just outcome of the preceding movements had been successful despite its obvious artificiality.

Preparing for the First Performance

For the chief facts in the story of the first performance of the D minor Symphony in Vienna we are largely dependent on Schindler, who was not only a witness of it but also an active agent. Beethoven was thoroughly out of sympathy with the musical taste of Vienna, which had been diverted from German ideals by the superficial charm of Rossini’s melodies. He wanted much to produce his symphony, but despaired of receiving adequate support or recognition from his home public. His friends offered him encouragement, but his fear and suspicion that his music was no longer understood by the Viennese and he no longer admired, had grown into a deep-rooted conviction. The project of a concert at which the Mass in D should be performed had been mooted months before. One day Sontag visited him and asked, “When are you going to give your concert?” We have a record of her speeches only; what Beethoven said must be supplied from the reader’s fancy. It is plain enough that instead of answering the question he expressed a doubt as to a successful financial outcome. “You give the concert,” said the singer, “and I will guarantee that the house will be full.” Still a moody suspicion, which the lady thinks it her right to rebuke: “You have too little confidence in yourself. Has not the homage of the whole world given you a little more pride? Who speaks of opposition? Will you not learn to believe that everybody is longing to worship you again in new works? O obstinacy!” This was in January. Beethoven had inquired of Count Brühl in Berlin whether or not a performance of the new Mass and Symphony might be given in that city, and Brühl had favored the plan. When news of this fact became known in Vienna, a number of Beethoven’s friends addressed him in the following memorial:

An Address to the Composer

To Herrn Ludwig van Beethoven.