Arts & Letters
Which composer's Ninth Symphony contains the Ode to Joy?
- Beethoven
- Mahler
- Dvorak
The answer is Beethoven. Now the EU anthem.
Beethoven's, premiered in 1824 - the first major symphony to use voices, which was startling enough that the idea of a chorus arriving in the final movement of a symphony had essentially no precedent. He was completely deaf by then and had not appeared publicly for years.
The premiere produced the story everyone knows and it appears to be true. Beethoven stood beside the conductor indicating tempi he could not hear, and at the end was still facing the orchestra with his back to the hall; the contralto Caroline Unger took his arm and turned him round so he could see the audience applauding. Accounts differ on the details and agree on the substance.
The tune has since been claimed by nearly everyone. It is the anthem of the European Union, without words, precisely so no member state's language is privileged. It was also used by Rhodesia as its national anthem, played at Nazi party events, and adopted by both sides in Chile. Schiller's poem is a universalist text about all people becoming brothers, which is exactly why regimes with the opposite intention have found it useful.