The solo baritone's recitative intervention in the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has often been interpreted as a commentary on the instrumental discourse of the symphony, but a newer interpretation of the recitative hears the baritone's words as a call to song in both a literal and idealized sense. Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" tune, which is borrowed from his setting of Bürger's poem Gegenliebe and was also used as the basis of his Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, provides added layers of meaning, especially in relation to the poetic sources. The connection between Bürger's Gegenliebe and Schiller's An die Freude is provocative when considering that both Schiller and Goethe rejected Bürger as a poet who failed to keep any sense of the "general" within his poetry. By using the Gegenliebe tune for An die Freude in the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven brings Bürger's folksy nature aesthetic and advocacy of simple, diagetic song (as heard in the laundry or sitting rooms) to bear on Schiller's abstract idealism of song. In addition to investigating the song-like aspects of the Finale, the effects of silences are also explored as folk elements and compared with Beethoven's settings of Johann Gottfried Herder's poetry.

Works: Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125.

Sources: Beethoven: Gegenliebe (60-63), Choral Fantasy, Op. 80 (60-62).

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Mary Ellen Ryan