Influence
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Many later composers of the Romantic period and beyond were influenced specifically by Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
At Easter 1831 Richard Wagner completed a piano arrangement of Beethoven's 9th symphony. Wagner had to decide which instrumental lines in the original had to be omitted since the pianist cannot play all the orchestral parts, thus giving his reduction a personal signature.
An important theme in the finale of Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 1 in C minor is related to the "Ode to Joy" theme from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth symphony. When this was pointed out to Brahms, he is reputed to have retorted "Any ass can see that!" Brahms's first symphony was, at times, both praised and derided as "Beethoven's Tenth".
Anton Bruckner used the chromatic fourth in his third symphony in much the same way that Beethoven used it in the first movement's coda. Bruckner also allued to the opening of the first movement in the openings of his fourth, seventh, eighth, and ninth symphonies.
Similarly, Gustav Mahler echoes the texture and mood of the first movement's opening in the opening of his first symphony.
In the opening notes of the third movement of his Symphony No. 9 (The "New World"), Antonín Dvořák pays homage to the scherzo of this symphony with his falling fourths and timpani strokes.
The church hymn, "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee", with words written in 1907 by Henry van Dyke, is sung to the "Ode to Joy" tune and is included in many hymnals, although not in the original key of D major.
One charming legend is that the Compact Disc was deliberately designed to have a 74-minute playing time in order to accommodate the length of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Kees Immink, Philips' chief engineer, who developed the CD, recalls that a commercial tug-of-war between the development partners, Sony and Philips, led to a settlement in a neutral 12-cm diameter format. The 1951 performance of the Ninth Symphony by Furtwängler was brought forward as the perfect excuse for the change.
Read more about this topic: Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“No power on earth or above the bottomless pit has such influence to terrorize and make cowards of men as the liquor power. Satan could not have fallen on a more potent instrument with which to thrall the world. Alcohol is king!”
—Eliza “Mother” Stewart (1816–c. 1908)
“What arouses the indignation of the honest satirist is not, unless the man is a prig, the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotically, or even that they behave wickedly. It is that they conspire successfully to impose upon the public a picture of themselves as so very sagacious, honest and well-intentioned.”
—Claud Cockburn (1904–1981)
“I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way. But in this water there are countless objects at different depths; and certain influences will give certain kinds of those objects an upward influence which may be intense enough and continue long enough to bring them into the upper visible layer. After the impulse ceases they commence to sink downwards.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)