Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, last movement

I have been taking my time putting up this final post on the Beethoven symphonies because the last movement of the 9th poses unique problems. There are two conflicting ways to look at this movement: either it is one of the greatest works of musical art ever created, so universally admired that they play it every New Year's in Japan and it has also been selected as the "national anthem" of the European Union; or it is a dog's breakfast of a piece, cobbled together out of elements that do not fit together and saddled with vocal parts that are badly written and almost unsingable. I'm afraid that both of these perspectives are probably true!

Lest you think that my misgivings about the last movement of the symphony are some kind of eccentric perversity, let me quote a couple of opinions from others. Louis Spohr who had known Beethoven personally and even played in his orchestra thought the last movement was "monstrous and tasteless". Fanny Mendelssohn thought the last movement was "abominable" and fell into "burlesque". Even a young Schubert thought that it confused "the agreeable with the repulsive, heroism with howlings". All these quotes are from a brilliant essay by Richard Taruskin on the 9th called "Resisting the Ninth" that was published in the Spring 1989 issue of 19th-Century Music. By the way, this extraordinary article, under the guise of being a review of Roger Norrington's new recording (at the time), is probably the most interesting and challenging piece of writing on the symphony. Modern critics of the symphony include Thomas Mann and Ned Rorem.

Now, let's have a look at the music. Let me hasten to say that I am just going to mention a few elements--this is a blog post after all!--and make no attempt to analyze the movement. I recommend Taruskin's article, available upon registration (free) through JSTOR, which does a pretty thorough job and also has a list of recommended reading and listening.

The two most radical departures from classical tradition in this movement are first of all, that it is virtually a symphony in itself with different sections in different tempi that recapitulate the previous movements of the symphony. Secondly, the introduction of vocal soloists and choir turns the work into something unprecedented: this symphony, in order to have a finale grand enough for the work, turns it into a kind of oratorio or cantata!

The movement begins with a cacophony in the winds:

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Followed by a recitative in the contrabasses:

Then the recitative is interspersed with quotations from the previous movements. The big theme is prefigured in the basses--here is just the beginning:

Finally, finally the baritone enters with this plea to stop all this cacophony "Oh friends, no more of these notes":

And then states the main theme himself. Again, here is just the beginning:

He is joined by the choir:

Later on there is a Turkish March:

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A couple of fugues:

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And passages of sublime transcendence:

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Beethoven is anticipating the 19th century with a message of universal brotherhood. Unfortunately, in the view of many, this vision was thoroughly burned by dictators and commissars in the early 20th century. Beethoven's encoding of the brotherhood of man transcending worldly concerns, while powerful, has to also be seen as naive--tragically so.

There are also musical problems in performing the piece, many of which Taruskin and others have written about. Not the least of these are the problematic metronome marks that Beethoven provided. I'm not sure that anyone has fully resolved those issues! Still another is the writing for voice. Preparing for this discussion, I put up a post the other day talking about Beethoven's writing for voice. He was, above all, a superb composer for instruments and it is his instrumental music that typically wins us over. His vocal writing is another story! The choral writing in this last movement is workable, but the parts for the vocal soloists are difficult, awkward and to me, fall short of what one would hope for. Don't take my word for it, let's ask a composer famous above all for writing for the voice, Giuseppe Verdi who said of the symphony that it was:

...marvelous in its first three movements, very badly set in the last. No one will ever surpass the sublimity of the first movement, but it will be an easy task to write as badly for voices as is done in the last movement.

Now let's hear the last movement. It would be appropriate to listen to Norrington's 1989 recording which comes in three parts on YouTube:

I cannot seem to find the last part of the Norrington performance, so here is the last movement conducted by Daniel Barenboim:

But for all the problems, it is also true that the 9th Symphony and especially the last movement also deserves all the praise it has received over the years. It is a movement like none other, spectacular in ways no other music has ever succeeded in being. The inspiration of generations of composers from Berlioz to Wagner to Mahler to Shostakovich. However much we may resist it, there is no other music like the 9th...