Ian Ehling
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Lot 29
BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN. 1770-1827. [Beethoven's Ninth] Sinfonie mit Schluss-Chor über Schillers Ode "An die Freude" für grosses Orchester. Mainz and Paris: B. Schott's Söhne, [1826].
6 March 2020, 10:00 EST
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BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN. 1770-1827.
[Beethoven's Ninth] Sinfonie mit Schluss-Chor über Schillers Ode "An die Freude" für grosses Orchester. Mainz and Paris: B. Schott's Söhne, [1826].
Folio (341 x 261 mm). Engraved title, 2 pp subscriber's list, final blank [pp 227-8]. Contemporary marbled paper boards, untrimmed, with upper panel publisher's original wrapper affixed to front board, minor foxing to margins.
"ODE TO JOY": AN EXCEPTIONAL FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF BEETHOVEN'S MONUMENTAL NINTH SYMPHONY, WIDLEY REGARDED AS THE GREATEST WORK OF CLASSICAL MUSIC. Plate number 2322, 2 pp subscriber's list, without metronome markings, pp 191 without plate number, "frech" for "streng" at p 207.
First performed on May 7, 1824, Beethoven's Ninth and final symphony was ground-breaking, and has resonated across two-hundred years of history, still relevant today. Longer and more complex than anything written previously, requiring a larger orchestra, it was also the first choral symphony incorporating chorus and vocals into the final movement, a first in the history of symphony. Beethoven had considered a musical setting of Schiller's poem "An die Freude" beginning in the 1790s, and between 1808 and 1812, his notebooks include ideas for possible settings. He puzzled through possibilities for 10 more years, his notebooks containing more than 200 different versions of the main theme. He finally finished the score in 1823, and Beethoven himself conducted the first performance. The complete score was published in August 1826, and Beethoven himself died shortly thereafter.
Beethoven's greatest work, the Ninth Symphony Beethoven's crowning achievement and the culmination of his life's work. "In its colossal proportions all his music seems to be contained: an entire life of stress and labour, an entire world of thought and passion and deep brooding insight; it touches the very nethermost abyss of human suffering, it rises 'durch Kampf zum Licht' [through struggle to light] until it culminates in a sublime hymn of joy and brotherhood" (Hadow, p 299). The Ninth Symphony's themes of unity and brotherhood have resonated throughout our modern history, taken up as the European anthem in 1972, and punctuating major historical events, including Bernstein's resetting during the fall of the Berlin wall (substituting "Freedom" for "Joy"), and as the soundtrack for the Chinese student uprising at Tiananmen Square. Beethoven's original hand-written manuscript of the score was the first musical score added to the United Nations Memory of the World Programme Heritage List (in 2001). 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, an event that will be celebrated worldwide.
"In its colossal proportions all his music seems to be contained: an entire life of stress and labour, an entire world of thought and passion and deep brooding insight; it touches the very nethermost abyss of human suffering, it rises 'durch Kampf zum Licht' until it culminates in a sublime hymn of joy and brotherhood" (Hadow, The Viennese Period: The Oxford History of Music, Vol 5, 1904, p 299).
A spectacular, untrimmed copy in contemporary boards, retaining the original wrapper panel, the subscriber's list, and exhibiting all the first issue points, very rarely found in such outstanding condition. Fuld (2000), p 563. Kinsky-Halm p 364. See Hadow, The Viennese Period: The Oxford History of Music, Vol 5, 1904; Levy, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Yale, 2003.
Folio (341 x 261 mm). Engraved title, 2 pp subscriber's list, final blank [pp 227-8]. Contemporary marbled paper boards, untrimmed, with upper panel publisher's original wrapper affixed to front board, minor foxing to margins.
"ODE TO JOY": AN EXCEPTIONAL FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF BEETHOVEN'S MONUMENTAL NINTH SYMPHONY, WIDLEY REGARDED AS THE GREATEST WORK OF CLASSICAL MUSIC. Plate number 2322, 2 pp subscriber's list, without metronome markings, pp 191 without plate number, "frech" for "streng" at p 207.
First performed on May 7, 1824, Beethoven's Ninth and final symphony was ground-breaking, and has resonated across two-hundred years of history, still relevant today. Longer and more complex than anything written previously, requiring a larger orchestra, it was also the first choral symphony incorporating chorus and vocals into the final movement, a first in the history of symphony. Beethoven had considered a musical setting of Schiller's poem "An die Freude" beginning in the 1790s, and between 1808 and 1812, his notebooks include ideas for possible settings. He puzzled through possibilities for 10 more years, his notebooks containing more than 200 different versions of the main theme. He finally finished the score in 1823, and Beethoven himself conducted the first performance. The complete score was published in August 1826, and Beethoven himself died shortly thereafter.
Beethoven's greatest work, the Ninth Symphony Beethoven's crowning achievement and the culmination of his life's work. "In its colossal proportions all his music seems to be contained: an entire life of stress and labour, an entire world of thought and passion and deep brooding insight; it touches the very nethermost abyss of human suffering, it rises 'durch Kampf zum Licht' [through struggle to light] until it culminates in a sublime hymn of joy and brotherhood" (Hadow, p 299). The Ninth Symphony's themes of unity and brotherhood have resonated throughout our modern history, taken up as the European anthem in 1972, and punctuating major historical events, including Bernstein's resetting during the fall of the Berlin wall (substituting "Freedom" for "Joy"), and as the soundtrack for the Chinese student uprising at Tiananmen Square. Beethoven's original hand-written manuscript of the score was the first musical score added to the United Nations Memory of the World Programme Heritage List (in 2001). 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, an event that will be celebrated worldwide.
"In its colossal proportions all his music seems to be contained: an entire life of stress and labour, an entire world of thought and passion and deep brooding insight; it touches the very nethermost abyss of human suffering, it rises 'durch Kampf zum Licht' until it culminates in a sublime hymn of joy and brotherhood" (Hadow, The Viennese Period: The Oxford History of Music, Vol 5, 1904, p 299).
A spectacular, untrimmed copy in contemporary boards, retaining the original wrapper panel, the subscriber's list, and exhibiting all the first issue points, very rarely found in such outstanding condition. Fuld (2000), p 563. Kinsky-Halm p 364. See Hadow, The Viennese Period: The Oxford History of Music, Vol 5, 1904; Levy, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Yale, 2003.