\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Theater am K\u00e4rntnertor, Vienna, Austrian empire<\/strong><\/p>\n 7 May 1824<\/strong><\/p>\n When Ludwig van Beethoven completed his Ninth Symphony in the early months of 1824, he gave voice to humanity\u2019s desire to make order out of chaos, to overcome division, and to create joy through brotherhood. Over his lifetime, the wars and revolutions that shook Europe had transformed politics; now the composer wanted to offer a cultural transformation through his music.<\/p>\n Beethoven had first begun writing his last, great masterpiece \u2013 the world\u2019s first choral symphony \u2013 after receiving a commission from London\u2019s Philharmonic Society in the November of 1822. But although London had commissioned the work, admirers in Vienna published an open letter calling for Beethoven to premiere the symphony there instead.<\/p>\n Vienna was the ideal location for the piece\u2019s first outing. As well as being familiar territory for the composer (he had lived there on and off for much of his adult life), the capital had also been the setting for the 1814\u201315 Congress of Vienna \u2013 the series of diplomatic meetings that had sought to create a lasting peace after the Napoleonic Wars<\/a>. The symphony\u2019s final movement \u2013 requiring the services of four vocal soloists and a full chorus \u2013 had been written to include words from Friedrich Schiller\u2019s 1785 poem An die Freude<\/em> (\u2018Ode to Joy\u2019), and its message of \u201call men becoming brothers\u201d thus felt fitting.<\/p>\n But despite the piece\u2019s bold statements, the first performance was informal by modern standards. Vienna did not have its own concert hall in 1824, and Beethoven was instead restricted to using the modest Theater am K\u00e4rntnertor. Furthermore, many of the performers were amateurs rather than professionals, and there was only time for two full rehearsals before the symphony received its premiere on 7 May 1824.<\/p>\n The performance could have easily been a disaster, but when the final movement reached its conclusion, the theatre was filled with the sounds of applause \u2013 even if Beethoven did not initially realise it himself. According to violinist Joseph B\u00f6hm, the profoundly deaf composer (who had spent the evening on stage next to conductor Michael Umlauf) had to be turned around by one of the soloists to see the audience waving their handkerchiefs in celebration.<\/p>\n One London music journal reported that the new symphony would need \u201cto be heard frequently in order to be duly appreciated\u201d \u2013 and appreciated it certainly has been. In the 200 years since its debut, people all over the world have come together to perform its call for peace, its ode to the brotherhood of all humanity, and its celebration of freedom.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Odd Fellows\u2019 Hall, New Orleans, United States<\/strong><\/p>\n 10 November 1859<\/strong><\/p>\n The first US performance of Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony took place in December 1824, a mere seven months after the piece\u2019s Vienna premiere. In this period, it was typical for the country\u2019s largely amateur orchestras and music societies to perform extracts \u2013 one movement of a symphony, for instance \u2013 or arrangements of the music for smaller chamber ensembles. Indeed, for the first few US performances of the Ninth, only the final movement and its setting of Friedrich Schiller\u2019s Ode to Joy<\/em> was heard.<\/p>\n Interestingly, this was also the case 35 years later, when the final movement was performed in venues across the US as part of an International Schiller Festival marking the 100th anniversary of the poet\u2019s birth. In a country that had welcomed more than a million German-speaking immigrants over the previous decade, the W\u00fcrttemberg-born writer remained an important cultural figure, and his call for brotherhood was well-received as fresh arrivals settled into their new home.<\/p>\n In New Orleans \u2013 which hosted a Schiller play, Schiller parade and \u2018grand concert\u2019 featuring settings of the writer\u2019s poems to music \u2013 there was strong encouragement for people of all nationalities to join in. One newspaper noted that, \u201cwe hope to see at the festival this evening a mingling of the lovers of poetry and song of various races, and tongues, for they are no barriers to brotherhood\u201d.<\/p>\n This warm-hearted sentiment, and the performance of Schiller\u2019s Ode to Joy<\/em> at Odd Fellows\u2019 Hall, was not, however, open to the 13,385 people who were enslaved in New Orleans. And the message of peace in Schiller\u2019s poems that Beethoven\u2019s music hoped to capture would be shattered with the secession of the Southern states in late 1860 and early 1861, and the outbreak of the American Civil War<\/a> soon after that.<\/p>\n At the end of the conflict \u2013 the bloodiest in the country\u2019s history \u2013 the Ninth Symphony was supposed to be performed by the Philharmonic Society of New York on 29 April 1865. But the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln<\/a> a fortnight earlier led the Philharmonic to change the programme at the last minute. Instead of the Ode to Joy<\/em>, which the New York Times reported \u201cwould have been manifestly improper to have performed\u201d, the orchestra instead played the sombre Funeral March from Beethoven\u2019s \u2018Eroica\u2019 Symphony after the first three movements of the Ninth.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Ninth Symphony bursts into life<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Americans unite on the eve of civil war<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>WWI prisoners play Beethoven for their captors<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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