Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is an immensely complex and demanding work. Composed in 1824, it was the most ambitious, most difficult, most expensive symphony of its time.
It’s also his most popular and inspired work. Musicologically, more has been written about the meanings behind this symphony than any other, while his 'Ode to Joy' is surely – except perhaps for the opening of his 5th symphony – the best-known classical theme ever composed.
The Ninth was to be Beethoven’s last symphony. In the 18th century a symphony was, by definition, a purely instrumental genre. So, a symphony with voices was unthinkable. Yet, that's what Beethoven wrote, bringing together massed choir and four vocal soloists with orchestra using Friedrich Schiller's 1785 poem “An die Freude" for its final movement.
We know Beethoven was a misanthrope: irritable, rude and desperately untidy. According to German writer and stateman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he was “utterly lacking in self-control”. Now, almost completely deaf, in terrible health, and near the end of his life, one could imagine a work of frustration or exhausted defeat.
Instead, he composed one of the most glorious, courageous, optimistic, enlightened and profound works of art ever created. The symphony opens in D minor, tragic and mysterious, and we’re taken on a long journey through darkness to light.
I view the Ninth not just as a masterpiece in its own right but as the great conclusion of all of Beethoven’s achievements. Leonard Bernstein conducted a version of it to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, swapping the word "Freude" (Joy) for "Freiheit" (Freedom). It is a song of humanity, music that speaks with a divine and philosophical message: what we have in common is greater than that which divides us.