Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony brings the series devoted to his nine symphonies at the Palau de la Música Catalana to a close. Its final movement features vocal soloists and a choir performing the celebrated Ode to Joy, based on Friedrich Schiller’s poem celebrating human fraternity. The concert also includes the Eighth Symphony, a shorter, more light-hearted work that reveals another side of the composer.
Daniele Gatti conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden, joined by the Orfeó Català and the Cor de Cambra del Palau, alongside four vocal soloists. The programme also features the premiere of a new orchestration by Jörg Widmann.
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At the premiere of his Ninth Symphony in Vienna in 1824, Beethoven could not hear the audience applauding because of his deafness. The contralto Caroline Unger had to turn him round so that he could see the ovation.
The Ode to Joy also had a difficult path to the stage. Beethoven even considered ending the Ninth Symphony with purely instrumental music. The idea of adding voices to a symphony was so bold that even the composer had doubts.
