Preface

Summary

The traditional story of the first performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 on May 7, 1824, is well known, especially the tale of the pitifully deaf composer who could not hear the applause that rewarded his music at the end. Earlier histories, beginning with Anton Schindler (1795–1864) and repeated (and elaborated upon) by Alexander Wheelock Thayer (1817–1897), as well as many subsequent mythmaking accounts, have related that Beethoven composed the Ninth Symphony on commission from the Philharmonic Society of London for a first performance there; that Beethoven composed the horn solo in the third movement for a hornist named Lewy, who possessed a valved horn; that he composed the contrabass recitatives in the finale with the virtuoso Domenico Dragonetti (1763–1846) in mind; that Beethoven possibly wanted to move the first performance from Rossini-loving Vienna to Berlin; that he received a mysterious petition imploring him to retain the first performance for Vienna; that Beethoven's friends had a long debate over the hall in which the concert should take place; that there was an unpleasant and unprecedented plan to replace concertmaster Franz Clement (1780–1842) with Beethoven's favorite, Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776–1830); that there were a large number of amateurs in the orchestra; that there was an inadequate performance after only two rehearsals; that the Imperial box of the theater was insultingly empty; that Beethoven looked like a disheveled genius at the premiere; that cheers from the audience were unfairly suppressed by the police; and that Beethoven earned unexpectedly small profits from the May 7 concert and its May 23 varied repeat.

Three recent book-length studies on the Ninth Symphony by Nicholas Cook (1993), David B. Levy (2003), and Harvey Sachs (2010) have essentially repeated the various received accounts of the premiere, the preparations for it, and the reviews that followed. A long chapter in Thomas Forrest Kelly's First Nights (2001), although intended for a popular audience, brings a number of interesting new details into play. Robin Wallace's 2017 collection, translation, and edition of nineteen reviews of the first performances and editions from 1824 to 1828 does likewise.