Overture Magazine: 2016-2017 Season September - October 2016 | Page 54

{ program notes
Listening to the Ninth

Beethoven Symphony No. 9
Text and Translation

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere.

O friends, not these tones!
Rather, let us tune our voices in more
pleasant and more joyful song.

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Joy, beauteous, godly spark,
Daughter of Elysium,
Drunk with fire, O Heavenly One,
We come unto your sacred shrine.
Your magic once again unites
That which Fashion sternly parted.
All men are made brothers
Where your gentle wings abide.

Wem der große Wurf gelungen,
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Mische seinen Jubel ein!
Ja — wer auch nur eine Seele
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehle
Weinend sich aus diesem Bund.

He who has won in that great gamble
Of being friend unto a friend,
He who has found a goodly woman,
Let him add his jubilation too!
Yes — he who can call even one soul
On earth his own!
And he who never has, let him steal
Weeping from this company.

Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Brüsten der Natur;
Alle Guten, alle Bösen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod,
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott.

All creatures drink of Joy
At Nature’s breasts.
All good, all evil souls
Follow in her rose-strewn wake.
She gave us kisses and vines,
A friend who has proved faithful even in death.
Lust was given to the Serpent,
And the Cherub stands before God.

Froh wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Durch des Himmels prächt’gen Plan,
Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,
Freudig wie ein Held zum Siegen.

As joyously as His suns fly
Across the glorious landscape of the heavens,
Brothers, follow your appointed course,
Gladly, like a hero to the conquest.

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Joy, beauteous, godly spark,
Daughter of Elysium,
Drunk with fire, O Heavenly One,
We come unto your sacred shrine.
Your magic once again unites
That which Fashion sternly parted.
All men are made brothers
Where your gentle wings abide.

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52 O v ertur e |

www. bsomusic .org

While listeners tend to focus on the
Ninth’s revolutionary finale, its first
movement is the biggest and most
daring purely instrumental movement
Beethoven ever composed. In the words
of recent Beethoven biographer Jan
Swafford, “The sound of the beginning,
like matter emerging out of the void and
slowly filling space, had never been heard
in a piece before. … The beginning is an
image of creation itself, of the creation
of worlds, of societies, of individuals.”
Initially, we hear a “creation” motive
of falling fifths. Nothing is clearly
established: key, rhythm, or thematic
substance. But as the volume increases,
it suddenly coalesces into a gigantic, aweinspiring theme striding down a D-minor
chord. The process is then repeated, but
this time the giant theme emerges in
B-flat Major, the Symphony’s other most
important key. It will eventually become
the key of the beautiful, pleading secondsubject theme, emphasizing the gentler
colors of woodwinds.
Launched again by the opening
creation motive, the development section is, unusually for Beethoven, not the
most dramatic portion of the movement.
Mostly softer and calmer in mood, it even
muses over a surprisingly lyrical variant of
the formidable principal theme. Instead,
the drama explodes catastrophically just
when we’d expect to find relief: as the
movement reaches the recapitulation of
the opening music. Here the creation
motive and the principal theme reappear
in their most terrifying version, in D Major
but with the harmony in an unstable and
profoundly disturbing position. Beethoven
then appends a huge coda, which touches
on a ghostly funeral march before the
orchestra shouts the principal theme one
last time.
Also in D minor, the Scherzo second
movement — Beethoven’s greatest example of the fierce dance form he refashioned
from the 3/4-time minuet — is built out
of another descending motive of just two
pitches and a dotted rhythm. From that
dotted rhythm and the potential it offers
to the timpani to become a major player
instead of an accompanist, Beethoven