Ode to Joy

The poem#

Schiller wrote the first version of the poem when he was staying in Gohlis, Leipzig. In 1785, from the beginning of May until mid-September, he stayed with his publisher, Georg Joachim Göschen, in Leipzig and wrote “An die Freude” along with his play Don Carlos. Schiller later made some revisions to the poem, which was then republished posthumously in 1808, and it was this latter version that forms the basis for Beethoven’s setting. Despite the lasting popularity of the ode, Schiller himself regarded it as a failure later in his life, going so far as to call it “detached from reality” and “of value maybe for us two, but not for the world, nor for the art of poetry” in an 1800 letter to his longtime friend and patron Christian Gottfried Körner (whose friendship had originally inspired him to write the ode).

Revisions#

The lines marked with * were revised in the posthumous 1808 edition as follows: The original, later eliminated last stanza reads

Ode to Freedom#

Academic speculation remains as to whether Schiller originally wrote an “Ode to Freedom” (An die Freiheit) and changed it to “To Joy”. The American journalist Alexander Wheelock Thayer wrote in his biography of Beethoven, “the thought lies near that it was the early form of the poem, when it was still an ‘Ode to Freedom’ (not ’to Joy’), which first aroused enthusiastic admiration for it in Beethoven’s mind”. The musicologist Alexander Rehding points out that even Bernstein, who used “Freiheit” in two performances in 1989, called it conjecture whether Schiller used “joy” as code for “freedom” and that scholarly consensus holds that there is no factual basis for this myth.

Use of Beethoven’s setting#

Over the years, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” has been used both as a protest song/melody, national anthem and a piece of remembrance. * Known as the Anthem of Europe, it has been the anthem of the Council of Europe since 1972, and the anthem of the European Union since 1985. * In 1957, the blacklisted American opera singer Paul Robeson sang “Ode to Joy” at a festival for 5,000 miners in Wales, but as his passport had been revoked, he couldn’t leave the USA, so he sang it via a transatlantic telephone line. * The melody was used for the national anthem of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia between 1974 and 1979, called Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia. * During the Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990), female protesters gathered outside prisons to sing “Himno a la Alegria,” a Spanish version of “Ode to Joy,” to bring hope to those being held inside. * It was performed in Berlin on Christmas Day 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the choir and orchestra members from both East and West Germany, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. * It has inspired impromptu performances at public spaces by musicians in many countries worldwide, including Choir Without Borders’ 2009 performance at a railway station in Leipzig, to mark the 20th and 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hong Kong Festival Orchestra’s 2013 performance at a Hong Kong mall, and performance in Sabadell, Spain. * A 2013 documentary, Following the Ninth, directed by Kerry Candaele, follows its continuing popularity. * It was played after Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the 2017 French Presidential elections, when Macron gave his victory speech at the Louvre. * The BBC Proms Youth Choir performed the piece alongside Georg Solti’s UNESCO World Orchestra for Peace at the Royal Albert Hall during the 2018 Proms at Prom 9, titled “War & Peace” as a commemoration to the centenary of the end of World War One. * The alleged Christian context of the song was one of the main reasons given by Nichiren Shoshu priests for expelling the Soka Gakkai International on 28 November 1991 due to the song being performed at SGI meetings, which was deemed by some priests as both syncretism and heresy. *The instrumental version is used as the official UEFA European Qualifiers anthem, and is also used as the official Copa Libertadores anthem. *A Yiddish version of the lyrics was written by Isaac Leib Peretz in the 1890s, and it is still used as a Jewish protest song. *The instrumental version of the song was played at 2008 UEFA Champions League final, after Manchester United players lifted the trophy. * Neon Genesis Evangelion character Kaworu Nagisa is heard humming “Ode to Joy” when he is first introduced.

Other musical settings#

Other musical settings of the poem include: * Christian Gottfried Körner (1786) * Carl Friedrich Zelter (1792), for choir and accompaniment, later rewritten for different instrumentations. * Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1796) * Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (1796) * Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg (1799) * Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg (1803) * Franz Schubert’s song “An die Freude”, 189, for voice, unison choir and piano. Composed in May 1815, Schubert’s setting was first published in 1829 as Op. post. 111 No. 1. The 19th century Gesamt-Ausgabe included it as a lied in Series XX, Volume 2 (No. 66). The New Schubert Edition groups it with the part songs in Series III (Volume 3). * Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1865), for solo singers, choir and orchestra in a Russian translation * Pietro Mascagni cantata “Alla gioia” (1882), Italian text by Andrea Maffei * “Seid umschlungen, Millionen!” (1892), waltz by Johann Strauss II * Z. Randall Stroope (2002), for choir and four-hand piano * Victoria Poleva (2009), for soprano, mixed choir and symphony orchestra

External links#

• (1786)
• An die Freude text and translations at The LiederNet Archive
• German and English text, Schiller Institute