Premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
- Date
- 7 May 1824
- Category
- Culture, arts & philosophy
- Region
- Vienna, Austrian Empire (Central Europe)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
On 7 May 1824 Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, received its first performance at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna.
The work was unprecedented in scale, employing the largest orchestra Beethoven had ever used and, in its final movement, a chorus and vocal soloists setting Friedrich Schiller's poem 'An die Freude' (Ode to Joy). It was the first time a major composer had introduced voices into a symphony, expanding the genre's expressive and philosophical ambitions and embodying Romantic ideals of universal brotherhood and the transcendent power of music. Profoundly deaf, Beethoven shared the stage but the orchestra followed conductor Michael Umlauf; according to tradition the composer had to be turned to see the audience's ovation. The symphony became one of the most influential and frequently performed works in the Western canon, shaping the Romantic conception of the artist as visionary and the 'Ode to Joy' melody later serving as the anthem of the Council of Europe and the European Union.
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Empires active in 7 May 1824
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
Related culture, arts & philosophy events
- Hokusai's 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa'c. 1831
- The Great Exhibition opens at the Crystal Palace1 May - 15 October 1851
- First Impressionist Exhibition opens in Paris15 April 1874
- Nietzsche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'1883–1885
- Freud publishes 'The Interpretation of Dreams'1900 (completed 1899)
- Rabindranath Tagore wins the Nobel Prize in Literature1913
Further reading
The wider story
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