NOSPR / Beethoven – IX Symfonia season opening concert - NOSPR

Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ was long one of Beethoven’s favourite poems, but despite several attempts at setting it to music, he only finally succeeded in one of his last works. The concept for the Ninth Symphony also took shape gradually, via the Choral Fantasy that prefigured the vocal-instrumental finale and the sketches of the Scherzo theme produced several years later. It is hardly surprising that it took the composer two years of intense work to draw all the strands together, and only after the work’s completion, in 1824, ‘could he be seen once again walking the streets […] greeting his friends after a long period of isolation’. The choice of a symphony expressing faith in the power of fellowship to launch the concert season following eighteen months of isolation may appear naive. Yet given that Beethoven Year was shrouded in darkness and silence, perhaps it is worth – a year later – shining a ray of his hope.

We play safe! Click and learn more about the public health rules in force during the coming concerts – more