Since 1812, Beethoven’s life had been in a continuous state of crisis and he had written little. But by 1820 he began to “set about,” as Beethoven biographer Maynard Solomon puts it, “reconstructing his life and completing his life’s work.” At first the process was slow. But by 1822, he was again working in a rage of energy. As part of this regeneration, the various projects and ideas connected with the Ninth Symphony began to sort themselves out. The first movement was ready early in 1823; by February 1824, the score was finished.

The first performance was given on May 7, 1824, in Vienna. The deaf composer stood on the stage beating time and turning the leaves of his score, but the real conducting was done by Michael Umlauf. At the end, Beethoven was still hunched over the pages of music, and contralto soloist Caroline Unger gently turned his head around so that he might see the applause he could not hear.

The Ninth Symphony traces a path from darkness to light, and across three long preceding movements, Beethoven depicts struggles and ecstasies. The most horrendous noise Beethoven could devise shatters the profound peace of the third movement, and now an extraordinary drama is played before us. In the gestures of operatic recitative, cellos and basses protest. Quotations of music from the first, second, and third movements vividly dramatize the idea of search. When, after three tries and three rejections, the woodwinds propose something new, the cellos and basses, with some cheering along by winds and drums, lose no time in expressing their enthusiasm. Those hectoring strings change their tone. The orchestra rounds off their recitative with a firm cadence, and without a second’s pause for breath one of the world’s great songs begins.

Beethoven spreads before us in a series of simple and compelling variations, interrupted by a return of the horrendous fanfare that began the movement. What earlier was matter for our imaginations to work on is now made explicit. The recitative is sung now, to words that Beethoven himself invented as preface to Friedrich von Schiller’s Ode.

Schiller had been dead eighteen years when Beethoven set An die Freude. Schiller did not think much of the poem, which is an enthusiastic drinking song. Perhaps Beethoven saw through it, perhaps he read into it what he needed. What is sure is that he transformed it. And once the words are there, they, and of course even more Beethoven’s transcendent responses to them, sweep us along.

Program notes by Michael Steinberg, San Francisco Symphony

The premiere took place November 3, 1945, with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Evgeny Mravinsky. To say that Stalinesque officialdom was taken aback is an understatement. In Solomon Volkov’s Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, the composer describes the situation:

They wanted a fanfare from me, an ode; they wanted me to write a majestic Ninth Symphony Everyone praised Stalin, and now I was supposed to join in this unholy affair. And they demanded that Shostakovich use quadruple winds, choir, and soloists to hail the leader… I confess that I gave hope to the leader and teacher’s dreams. I announced that I was writing an apotheosis. When my Ninth was performed, Stalin was incensed. He was deeply offended because there was no chorus, no soloists. And no apotheosis. There wasn’t even a paltry dedication. It was just music, which Stalin didn’t understand very well, and which was full of dubious content.

In spite of all the unacknowledged state-sanctioned intimidation used to bully the most original artists in the Stalin era, Shostakovich had by then attained the highest profile internationally of any Soviet artist. Payback would come eventually, but it was delayed both because of Shostakovich’s reputation abroad and because Stalin’s plate was full with new international diplomatic relationships to manipulate.

Like his Piano Concerto No. 1, composed twelve years earlier, the Symphony No. 9 is rife with Shostakovich’s unmistakable fingerprints, not least his penchant for parody and sarcasm. Yet it remains faithful to the classical model. Its first movement follows sonata form, complete with repeat of exposition, but then switches the major triad into minor, introducing a tonal ambiguity that carries through like an undercurrent to the often raucous goings-on otherwise.

The elegiac second movement is followed by the last three, which are played without a break. The fourth movement is really an introduction to the finale, with stentorian trombones answered by an impassioned bassoon that at last dissolves into triviality. Timothy Day concludes, “This is music for a hollow victory.”

Program notes by Scott MacClelland, Symphony Silicon Valley