Brain Fuel

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony may be the most famous piece of classical music. It certainly has the best-known tune, and its message to all of humanity has resonated ever since its premiere in 1824. This course will consider the piece’s meaning for us today, and it will also seek to re-create, in pictures and sound, the scene of the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the Kärntnertor Theater in May of 1824. Things were different then: there was no symphony orchestra in Vienna, no symphonic concert hall, no regular season of orchestral concerts. How did this new symphony, under-rehearsed as it was, sound to its listeners who were expert at listening to 18th-century symphonies? What did it mean to people who had experienced the Enlightenment, Napoleon, and a repressive imperial monarchy? How was Beethoven’s message of universal brotherhood understood by his listeners? Beethoven’s Ninth, one of the most canonical pieces of Western music, was once a cutting-edge piece of contemporary music — but in another place and time.