In the past, May 7 was a day for frenemies, as I’ve always been fond of emphasizing the uneasy friendship of Brahms and Tchaikovsky on their birthday anniversaries – artists repelled by one another’s creations, who were pleasantly surprised by how well they got along once they met in person (though they still disliked one another’s music). The alcohol they consumed certainly could not have hurt.
However, today, we put all that frenemy business aside, as all men are brothers, when the birthdays of Brahms and Tchaikovsky coincide with the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The Ninth, of course, is the visionary symphony that climaxes with an ecstatic setting of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” Everyone knows the melody, even if they think they don’t. The text proclaims, depending on the translation, “All mankind will become as brothers!”
The tune is demonstrated here by Schroeder, insistently joyous even in the face of Lucy’s hostility:
Beethoven’s revolutionary masterwork, striking for both its scale (oversized orchestra with a quartet of vocal soloists and chorus) and length (running to well over an hour), cast a forbidding shadow. Much ink has been spilled about the struggles of composers throughout the 19th century to come to terms with the Ninth. In fact, I remember reading a book by conductor Felix Weingartner, a renowned Beethoven interpreter (he was the first to record all nine symphonies), titled “On the Performance of Beethoven’s Symphonies and Other Essays,” in which he addresses the successes and failures of all the major symphonic composers that followed.
The story of the legendary first performance of the work, on May 7, 1824, is well-known, but bears repeating. The auditorium of Vienna’s Theater am Kärntnertor (Carinthian Gate Theater) was packed – Schubert was in attendance, and so was Czerny – and the orchestra was staffed by many of the great musicians of the day. No complete roster of performers survives, but as was the case with the all-star team that played in the premiere of Beethoven’s 7th, many of Vienna’s most elite musicians participated.
It was Beethoven’s first public appearance in 12 years. By that time, of course, the composer was almost completely deaf. But that didn’t keep him from air-conducting as the ideal interpretation unfurled in his head. The official conductor was the theater’s kapellmeister, Michael Umlauf, and he instructed the musicians to watch him, not the composer, as he had witnessed an earlier disaster with Beethoven in the pit for a dress rehearsal for “Fidelio.”
According to one of the violinists, Beethoven “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.”
When the piece concluded, the hall resounded with applause, but Beethoven was still conducting. The contralto soloist, Karoline Unger, approached the composer and gently turned him around to acknowledge the cheers. Members of the audience, who recognized they could not be heard, waved their handkerchiefs, hats, and hands, so that even in his isolation, the composer knew he had scored a hit.
Mankind never does seem to get its act together, but even as the world teeters on the brink of disaster, the Ninth continues to resonate. Concert halls fill wherever it is programmed. When the compact disc was developed, technicians standardized the length at 74 minutes, so that the format could accommodate a complete recording of the work. (In the days of LP, I recall some rather awkward breaks in the middle of the third movement.) Used as the prototype was Wilhelm Furtwängler’s 1951 recording.
In the history of music, the Ninth stands like the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” (Interesting that Kubrick would use the work to such ironic effect a few years later in “A Clockwork Orange.”) There was music before the Ninth and there was music after the Ninth. From a certain point of view, everything seemed to culminate in its creation, and afterward, all was decadence. It is the Continental Divide of classical music.
For the Romantics, the Ninth changed everything. Every composer for a hundred years had to grapple with its influence. For the rest of the century, experiments with orchestra and chorus became larger and larger, setting all manner of aspirational texts. Mahler pushed 74 minutes to 90 with his Third Symphony. His Eighth is so large, it was dubbed “The Symphony of a Thousand.” In the 20th century, there was nowhere to go but down. Even as composers embraced the leaner textures of neoclassicism they continued to labor in the shadow of Beethoven, whether assimilating his lessons or rejecting them.
The inclusion of the chorus is the most obvious innovation, but Beethoven wouldn’t be Beethoven if there weren’t plenty else to reward a closer look, and musicians and scholars have been dissecting the work and studying its secrets for the past two centuries.
Brahms, who lived from 1833 to 1897, and Tchaikovsky, who lived from 1840 to 1893, were no different from their contemporaries in feeling the heat of the 9th. It is well-known that Brahms experienced enormous pressure in his own mastery of symphonic form, postponing his first symphony for many years, as he continued to hone his skills on works such as the orchestral Serenades and the Piano Concerto No. 1, the latter conceived on a suspiciously symphonic scale. It took him over twenty years to own up to an actual symphony.
At its debut, conductor Hans von Bülow dubbed it “Beethoven’s Tenth,” no doubt because of its excellence, but also because of the perceptible influence of the earlier composer. It was Bülow who also formulated “the three B’s,” grouping Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms in a spontaneously-erected pantheon that music-lovers still invoke. Brahms was surely relieved that the work was so rapturously received, but (being Brahms) he was also annoyed when it was pointed out that the chorale theme that forms the basis of the last movement bears an uncanny resemblance to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” To this, Brahms gruffly responded, “Any ass can see that!”
I’ve cued the theme up for you at the link, but nothing’s stopping you from going back to listen to the entire symphony:
After the First, things came easier for Brahms. The ice broken, he composed his Symphony No. 2, with confidence, in a single summer.
In Tchaikovsky’s case, his own predilection gravitated more toward Mozart. This is evident, of course, in his Orchestral Suite No.4, subtitled “Mozartiana,” but also in the “Variations on a Rococo Theme” for cello and orchestra. He confided to his diary, “I do bow before the greatness of some of his works, but I do not love Beethoven.” That’s not to say he did not respect, or even revere him. His remarks are more nuanced than I make them out to be. You’ll find his complete thoughts here, including the diary entry from which I excerpt, at the bottom of the page:
Fascinating, then, that Tchaikovsky would exhibit such youthful bravado in setting Schiller’s text himself for his graduation examinations at the St. Petersburg Conservatory! This is a stunning display of self-assurance for a composer who frequently struggled with insecurity. He later dismissed the work as immature, but it is certainly worth hearing:
In Beethoven, as in all things, it seems, Brahms and Tchaikovsky were divided. Fortunately, they were united in the brotherhood of drink.
Happy birthday to the Felix and Oscar of classical music, and raise a glass to the most important symphony ever written, with a thought for the brotherhood of man, now to be desired as much as ever.
This brisk performance from 1958 is one of my favorites. Not for every day, perhaps, but thrilling.
Weingartner conducts in 1935
Furtwängler sets the standard length of the CD in 1951
Bernstein celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall with a multinational ensemble in 1989, substituting “Freiheit” (Freedom) for Schiller’s “Freude” (Joy)
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