The sound of eternity

The Ninth is not necessarily Beethoven’s greatest symphony.

The Ninth is not necessarily Beethoven’s greatest symphony. That honour is surely shared by the Eroica, in which the composer changed the course of orchestral writing after two prentice works (and what works they were!), and the Seventh. Beethoven’s last symphony, known in the English-speaking world as the ‘Choral’, for its unprecedented use of the human voice, is magnificent but flawed. The meditative slow movement may be the greatest Beethoven ever wrote, but the joy that Beethoven strove for in the finale finds finer musical and dramatic expression in the hymn to liberty that closes Fidelio.

If it is not his greatest symphony it is certainly the one that has cast the longest shadows. In the German-speaking world the Ninth is performed, in keeping with the work’s character, to close each year, and to begin every new one. At the Proms it is the only work that is performed every season.