There were in the orchestra at this concert eighteen first violins, eighteen second violins, fourteen violas, twelve violoncellos, seven double basses. The audience numbered about three thousand, although Schindler spoke of five thousand.
We know from his talk noted down that Beethoven originally planned an elaborate introduction to this symphony.
It is often said that the second movement, the celebrated allegretto scherzando, is based on the theme of a “three-voice circular canon, or round, Ta, ta, ta, lieber Mälzel, sung in honor of the inventor of the metronome at a farewell dinner given to Beethoven in July, 1812, before his leaving Vienna for his summer trip into the country.” This story was first told by Schindler, who, however, did not say that the dinner was given to Beethoven alone, and did say that the dinner was in the spring of 1812. Beethoven was about to visit his brother Johann in Linz; Mälzel was going to England to produce there his automaton trumpeter but was obliged to defer this journey. Beethoven, who among intimate friends was customarily “gay, witty, satiric, ‘unbuttoned,’ as he called it,” improvised at this parting meal a canon, which was sung immediately by those present. The allegretto was founded on this canon, suggested by the metronome, according to Schindler. Thayer[11] examined this story with incredible patience, and he drew these conclusions: the machine that we now know as Mälzel’s metronome was at first called a musical chronometer, and not until 1817 could the canon include the word “Metronom.” Schindler, who was seventeen years old in 1812, heard the story from Count Brunswick, who was present at the meal, but was not in Vienna from March, 1810, till the end of February, 1813, four months after the completion of the symphony. Furthermore, Beethoven is reported as having said: “I, too, am in the second movement of the Eighth symphony—ta, ta, ta, ta—the canon on Mälzel. It was a right jolly evening when we sang this canon. Mälzel was the bass. At that time I sang the soprano. I think it was toward the end of December, 1817.” Thayer says: “That Mälzel’s ‘ta, ta, ta’ suggested the allegretto to Beethoven, and that at a parting meal the canon on this theme was sung, are doubtless true; but it is by no means sure that the canon preceded the symphony.... If the canon was written before the symphony, it was not improvised at this meal; if it was then improvised, it was only a repetition of the allegretto theme in canon form.” However this may be, the persistent ticking of a wind instrument in sixteenth notes is heard almost throughout the movement, of which Berlioz said: “It is one of those productions for which neither model nor pendant can be found. This sort of thing falls entire from heaven into the composer’s brain. He writes it at a single dash, and we are amazed at hearing it.”
SYMPHONY NO. 9, IN D MINOR, WITH FINAL CHORUS ON SCHILLER’S “ODE TO JOY,” OP. 125
I. Allegro, ma non troppo, un poco maestoso II. Molto vivace; presto III. Adagio molto e cantabile IV. Presto Allegro assai Presto Baritone recitative Quartet and chorus: allegro assai Tenor solo and chorus: allegro assai vivace, alla marcia Chorus: allegro assai Chorus: andante maestoso Adagio, ma non troppo, ma divoto Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato Quartet and chorus: allegro ma non tanto; prestissimo
Much has been written about the Ninth symphony, a symphony that has been and is a stumbling block to certain conductors and hearers. It is easy to smile at such books as Le Livre de la Genèse de la IX Symphonie de Beethoven, by Ricciotto Canudo, with its fantastical theories and titles given to the leading themes, but the comments of more ordinary mortals have led conductors into singular experiments. Some have rewritten passages. Some, fearing the inherent difficulties in the finale, have transposed this finale a tone lower. There are hearers who, knowing the theory of Wagner—that the Ninth symphony was the logical end of purely instrumental music, and Beethoven introduced singers in the finale to show his impatience with the orchestra as a medium of full expression—look on the symphony as a polemical work and in turn deny all absolute music written after Beethoven’s death.
The music remains, in spite of the commentators and the too anxious conductors. The instrumental movements are among the proudest achievements of man. Mr. Canudo may begin his “explanation” of the opening allegro by saying: “In the beginning was space; and all possibilities were in space; and life was space”; he may find in a certain page the “religious affirmation of Creation”; he may entitle the first theme of the adagio “The rhythm of the blessed cosmic night” and thus take his pleasure.
The music of the first three movements is not the less sublime or beautiful because it has no programme, because it has no text for singers. With the exception of a few stupendous passages in the finale, where Beethoven is among the stars, the finale falls below the movements that precede it. There is more frenzied joy in the scherzo; there is greater, world-embracing humanity, a loftier, nobler spirit in the adagio. The theme of Joy is not in itself one of Beethoven’s most fortunate inventions, and there are pages both for singers and for orchestra that disconcert even if they do not seem to the hearer abnormal and impotent. The answer made by some is that if an ideal performance could be attained the grandeur of the thought would then be overwhelming. Unfortunately, human voices have their limitations.
Yet if the first three movements are performed alone, there is a sense of incompleteness. If the finale is transposed, the effect is diminished. And so the Ninth symphony as a whole is still a stumbling block to many.
