Genesis of a Anthem to joy
“Joy, beautiful divine spark,
Daughter of the assembly of the gods,
We enter, drunk with fire,
Heavenly, your kingdom!
Your magics are renewed
What customs rigorously divide;
All humans become brothers,
Where your gentle wing extends.”
Beethoven discovered the text during the year 1792 An die Freude by Schiller, an ode to joy and fraternity. The young Ludwig was then 22 years old and the texts he read would inspire his future work. The idea of setting Schiller’s text to music was already germinating in his head, but the years passed and time ran out. The poet’s stanzas will however infuse part of Beethoven’s work, crossing in a few brief moments the theme of a future Ode to Joy.
Of the Joy by Schiller, he will use the third line of the second stanza for his opera Fidelio (1805). From the musical theme of the last movement of the Ninth Symphony, we believe we can spot a Mozartian inspiration. The theme actually seems inspired by the offertory Misericordias Domini (K. 222) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).
There Ninth Symphony becomes a message of hope, peace and brotherly love that travels the world. Its message was so strong that in 1951 it was played at the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, which had then been tarnished by Nazism. The theme ofAnthem to the joy of Beethoven then became the official anthem of the European Union in 1985.
