Summer 1997
Volume 23, Number 4

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
. . . . . . . . . .
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Fuügel weilt.

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
. . . . . . . . . .
Your magic power unites what
strict custom has divided;
All men [will] become brothers
where your gentle wing rests.
[Quoted in B, pp. 108, 109]6

Beethoven continued to believe in this dream, long after it had become unfashionable. 7 But a century and a half would have to pass before those who wielded actual political power returned to a version of the supernationalist idea that had long ago inspired philosophers, poets, and composers. That they did return to it reflected not a sudden recovery of the spirit of the Enlightenment but a desperate attempt to rekindle a sense of hope that had nearly been extinguished in the bloodbaths of the modern era. Beethoven's Ninth was enlisted in that attempt.

4. See Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden: Ein philosophischer Entwurf (1795; Stuttgart, 1793); trans. pub., under the title Perpertual Peace, ed. Lewis Beck White (Indianapolis, 1957). Written in a witty, mock-heroic style, Kant's essay includes an analysis of the causes of war and the conditions of peace. Unlike many of his German contemporaries, Kant remained faithful to the principles of revolution even after the Reign of Terror. Indeed, some political theorists have dated the "doctrine" of nationalism from precisely this point.

5. Quoted in Erich Trunz, "Schillers Lied 'An die Freude' und Beethovens IX. Symphonie," Weltbild und Dichtung im Zeitalter Goethes (Weimer, 1993), p.102. I would like to thank Klaus-Jörgen Sachs, of the Universit&aouml;t Erlangen-N&uouml;rnberg, for bringing this article to my attention. In a recent dissertation, James Parsons discusses Schiller's poem within a long-standing philosphical literary-musical tradition, documenting over forty musical settings of Schiller's poem prior to Beethoven's setting; see James Parsons, "Ode to the Ninth: The Poetic and Musical Tradition behind the Finale of Beethoven's 'Choral Symphony'" (ph.D diss., University of North Texas, 1992).

6. In his long monograph on the choral finale, Otto Baensch states that the third-to-last line above originally read "was der Mode Schwert geteilt" ("what the contemporary sword has divided") in the version Schiller published in Thalia (quoted in Otto Baensch, Aufbau und Sinn des Chorfinales in Beethovens neunter Symphonie [Berlin, 1930], p.29). How to translate this line is also debatable: is streng an adjective, as in "die strenge Mode" ("strict custom"), or is it an adverb, as in "die Mode streng geteilt" ("custom strictly divided")? The sense is indeed different; however, Schiller may have meant the former but used the latter as poetic license. Compare Cook's translation with that of William Kinderman in his Beethoven (Oxford, 1995), pp. 13-14. Regarding the line "Alle Menschen werden Bruder," Maynard Solomon notes that "the tense is neither past, present, nor even quite future, but a process tense, implying what will happen 'if'" (Maynard Soloman, "The Ninth Symphony: A Search for Order," Beethoven Essays [Cambridge, Mass., 1988], p.30).

7. The idalistic vision of peace and brotherhood was outmoded by 1824; indeed, Schiller's poem was almost four decades old. For a discussion of Beethoven's ideals. see Solomon, "Beethoven and Schiller," Beethoven's Essays, pp. 205-15.

Caryl Clark is assistant professor of musicology at the University of Toronto at Scarbrough and the Faculty of Music. She has published several articles ont he operas of Joseph Haydn and Mozart.

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