Anthem - Intellect

Anthem
re-emerging mass experience in the French Revolution, and expressed in aesthetic
ceremonial forms such as Beethoven’s symphonies, displaying a heroism stylistically
deriving from the mass dances and marches of the French Revolution. 368 Márothy
shows how the melismatically lengthened rhythm of the ‘Ode to Joy’ melody has a
sentimental declamation that is stylistically a subgroup of polka rhythm: a series of
open-closed pairs with ancient roots, much used in medieval plebeian forms. 369
Beethoven’s introduction of a choir and sung words in the symphony genre was an
innovation with immense influence on later generations. 370 Schiller’s ‘An die Freude’
had since long interested Beethoven. It was written in 1785 but in 1803 published
in a revised version where some political elements were softened. Beethoven went
even further in the same direction, using only half of Schiller’s lyrics and making
considerable alterations and rearrangements to suit his purposes. He avoided the
most overtly political attacks at the tyrant’s power, for instance changing ‘Bettler
werden Fürsten-brüder’ (‘Beggars become Princes’ brothers’) to ‘Alle Menschen
werden Brüder’ (‘All men will become brothers’). This was not only in order to avoid
Metternich’s censorship but also to produce the more abstract, utopian and idealistic
expression that Beethoven himself wished to convey, focusing on the all-embracing
community rather than the political act of revolution. With the same idealistic
purpose, he also omitted sections reminding of a drinking song, and reordered
the choruses to create an unbroken line of development from the terrestrial to the
divine. 371
In its symphonic setting, the ode introduces a popular voice, a steady tune that
could be heard as ‘natural’ and authentic in contrast with aristocratic forms: a
song of the people or ‘of the good human being’ (‘des guten Menschen’) in a more
universal sense. Like so many other commanding marches and fanfares, it starts with
an upward movement, but instead of swinging rapidly to the sky, it walks steadily
upwards, starting with two sturdy steps on the same spot before ascending step by
step, and with even and steady beats reminding more of common people on the move
than of gallant horses or flying angels. This fusion of highly advanced composition
techniques with low popular tunes, inspired by democratic and revolutionary
practices, has great potential for meeting EU’s need for satisfying popular demands
as well as the cultural and political elites. 372 But the further elaboration of this tune in
the symphony movement has puzzled many listeners, as it enigmatically eludes any
easy interpretation.
Musicologist Nicholas Cook describes the Ninth’s finale as formally ‘a cantata
constructed round a series of variations on the “joy” theme’, but it has also been
analysed as a sonata form, a concerto form or ‘a conflation of four symphonic
movements into one’ (the latter suggested by Charles Rosen). 373 The following outline
of the main sections of this complex movement is constructed on the basis of Cook’s
analysis (Figure 7.2).
163