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(This kid was only 23 years old when this was shot, and he uses his baton like a wand. It may be the best performance I’ve every heard recorded. The miking is amazing. For those of you who are young, try to image yourselves, barely over the age of 21, conducting a major orchestra where some of the people in the orchestra are the age of your parents, or older. Then try to imagine being even close to my age and having to take directions from a man who is barely older than a boy. Imagine the doubt he must have faced at first, proving himself, and how the older people must have said: “What is a child doing conducting my orchestra.” I am awe struck by what I’m seeing and hearing, and that does not happen often to me. And, by the way, the visuals are amazing, if you enjoy watching. I give the music, the recording and the camera work 10/10. Note the standing ovation at the end, so 10/10 for the audience. This is a performance of a lifetime.)

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, age 51-53

The 9th symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as Beethoven’s greatest work and one of the supreme achievements in the history of western music. It stands as one of the most performed symphonies in the world. But it’s also insanely difficult to pull off. It’s more than an hour long, and at the time Beethoven wrote it no one wrote symphonies more than an hour long.

Instrumentation:

• 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, B♭ and C, 2 bassoons
  piccolo (fourth movement only), contrabassoon (fourth movement only)
• 4 horns in D, B♭ and E♭, 2 trumpets in D and B♭, 3 trombones (alto, tenor, and bass; second and fourth movements only)
• Percussion: timpani, bass drum (fourth movement only), triangle (fourth movement only), cymbals (fourth movement only)
• Choir plus SATB soloists (fourth movement only)

Andrés Orozco-Estrada

• 0:38 I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso – D minor
• 15:15 II. Molto vivace – D minor
• 27:30  III. Adagio molto e cantabile – Bb major
• 41:04 I V. Finale – D minor – D major

Klaus Mäkelä

• I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso – D minor
• II. Molto vivace – D minor
• III. Adagio molto e cantabile – Bb major
• IV. Finale – D minor – D major

1st movement:

It’s starts as if the strings are tuning up. That’s open 5ths, and even if anyone else every did that before, a bit, no one did it like this. The whole movement is like a force of nature, and the world had never heard anything like this, although they got a taste of it in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. I usually get annoyed looking at conductors, but his stick technique is superb. You can follow every beat. Young Toscanini would looked about the same and started making a name for himself at only age 19.

2nd movement:

The 2nd movement may be my favorite part of this symphony and one of about three or four movements of all nine symphonies that I like best. It’s a miracle. Note the timpani playing. Timpani is so important in this music, because it was the only percussion instrument used at that time in symphonies.

3rd movement:

The slow movement is in Bb major. Bb major and D major are related by a double morph – Bb D F moves to A D F# – so more and more composers used this relationship to move to a new key for the slow movement and then back. Since the key of the movement is Bb, as he moves to D major, G major, E♭ major, F#/Gb major, and B major – and maybe more keys I have not listed – he goes through about half of the possible 12 keys. So the whole thing is quite complex in chord structure.

4th movement:

Almost everyone in the world knows the “Ode to Joy” theme. It is used in a theme and variations form. It starts in ugly, abrasive minor with what I call a “dirty minor chord”. It is D F A Bb, where the Bb clashes harshly. It’s like a musical slap in the face, and it must have shocked audiences. The problem in this movement is that Beethoven wrote very high voice parts, but these singers do a very good job with the demands. When the audience goes nuts at the end, that’s not hype. The performance really was “that good”.

Beethoven had difficulty describing the finale himself…

In letters to publishers, he said that it was like his Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, only on a much grander scale. Thus there have been interminable arguments about its musical form, and I think all of them are pointless. It’s best to just listen and enjoy it.

The finale, however, has had its detractors…

For example, Verdi:

admired the first three movements but lamented the confused structure and the bad writing for the voices in the last movement:

I hate music critics, but Verdi was speaking not as a critic but as one of the finest composers for singers that has ever lived, and he raised a really important point. The last movement can sound like a lot of out of tune screaming with excessive warble.

Very few choirs can master the vocal difficulties…

This is caused largely by singers having to sing very high, often for way too long and sometimes softly. You need an exception group to pull it off, and this recording with Gardiner is the only recording I’ve heard that does not make me agree somewhat with Verdi. Also, if any of the four soloists are not absolutely great, for those of us who are not opera lovers it can get quite unpleasant.

The first with voices…

The 9th symphony was the first time a major composer used voices in a symphony. Words are sung during the final movement of the symphony by four vocal soloists and a chorus. They were taken from the “Ode to Joy”, a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803, with text additions made by Beethoven.

Commissioned…

The Philharmonic Society of London originally commissioned the symphony in 1817. The main composition work was done between autumn 1822 and the completion of the autograph in February 1824. This may be important because there was no individual patron.

Long history…

The Choral Fantasy Opus. 80 (1808) brings in a choir and vocal soloists near the end. There is a theme very much like corresponding theme in the 9th Symphony. Beyond that there are themes and sketches from earlier music that go way back, at least a couple decades. So regardless of when the 9th was finished, its history goes way back in time.

Premiere in Vienna..

Beethoven feared that that musical taste in Vienna had become so dominated by Italian composers such as Rossini that he needed to premiere the 9th in Berlin. Friends and financiers urged him to premiere the symphony in Vienna. They gave him a petition signed by a number of prominent Viennese music patrons and performers to convince him to share his new symphony first in Vienna.

The Theater am Kärntnertor in 1830…

Beethoven was flattered by the adoration of Vienna, so the Ninth Symphony was premiered on 7 May 1824. This was the composer’s first onstage appearance in 12 years, The hall was packed with an eager audience and a number of famous musicians.

Largest orchestra…

The premiere of Symphony No. 9 involved the largest orchestra ever assembled by Beethoven and required the combined efforts of the Kärntnertor house orchestra, the Vienna Music Society (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde), and a select group of capable amateurs. While no complete list of premiere’s performers exists, many of Vienna’s most elite performers participated. This was no slap-dash affair.

Famous singers…

The soprano and alto parts were sung by two famous young singers: Henriette Sontag (18) and Caroline Unger (20). After performing in Beethoven’s 1824 premiere, Unger then found fame in Italy and Paris. Anton Haizinger (28) and Joseph Seipelt (37) sang the tenor and bass/baritone parts, respectively. Three of the four were under 30, and the women were barely out of their teens.

Caroline Unger, who sang the contralto part at the first performance and is credited with turning Beethoven to face the applauding audience.

Two conductors…

The performance was directed by Michael Umlauf, the theatre’s Kapellmeister. Beethoven shared the stage with him. However, two years earlier, Umlauf had watched as the composer’s attempt to conduct a dress rehearsal of his opera Fidelio ended in disaster. So this time, he instructed the singers and musicians to ignore the almost totally deaf Beethoven. At the beginning of every part, Beethoven, who sat by the stage, gave the tempos. He was turning the pages of his score and beating time for an orchestra he could not hear. Talk about a spectacle!

A scrappy performance but a huge success…

The 9th was underrehearsed with only two full rehearsals. On the other hand, the premiere was a great success.

A wild show…

Violinist Joseph Böhm recalled:

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 as though he wanted to play all the instruments and sing all the chorus parts.—The actual direction was in Duport’s hands; we musicians followed his baton only.

Now, who is Louis Duport? He was not the conductor. Perhaps the violinist was making a joke based on a famous ballet dancer and ballet master. Regardless, the whole thing must have been quite mad!

Huge applause…

When the audience applauded, Caroline Unger walked over and turned Beethoven around to accept the audience’s cheers and applause. According to the critic for the Theater-Zeitung,

“The public received the musical hero with the utmost respect and sympathy, listened to his wonderful, gigantic creations with the most absorbed attention and broke out in jubilant applause, often during sections, and repeatedly at the end of them.”

The audience acclaimed him through standing ovations five times; there were handkerchiefs in the air, hats, and raised hands, so that Beethoven, who could not hear the applause, could at least see the ovations.