Theodore Albrecht 
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony 
Rehearsing and Performing its 1824 Premiere

Brings to life the day-to-day details of staging the premiere of one of the most iconic works of Western classical music.


The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven with its final choral movement is one of the iconic works of Western classical music. And yet, the story never fully told concerns the months leading to the symphony’s world premiere in Vienna on 7 May and repeat performance on 23 May 1824. In his new book, Theodore Albrecht brings to life the day-to-day details that it took to stage that premiere. It’s a story of negotiating for performance halls and performers’ payments, of hand-copying legible scores and individual parts for over 120 performers, of finding financiers, as well as space and time for rehearsals. Importantly, it is also a story of the relationship between Beethoven and the musicians who performed this symphonic masterpiece. In fact, as the maddening rehearsal schedule towards the symphony’s premiere shows, it transpires that many passages of the Ninth have been tailored to specific orchestral players.



Many modern-day musicians will recognize familiar situations in rehearsals, many scholars and students will relish unprecedented new detail. All this comes to the fore by reconstructing the story drawing on the (almost) deaf composer’s Conversation Books which Beethoven had been using since 1818. In the performance story of the Ninth Symphony’s premiere, Albrecht makes full use of these invaluable documents, which are now being translated for the first time into English in a series of 12 volumes published by the Boydell Press.

İçerik tablosu

Preface

Acknowledgements


Chapter 1: Composition of the Ninth Symphony

Chapter 2: Petition, Preparations, Copying

Chapter 3: Finding a Location

Chapter 4: Final Preparations / First Rehearsals

Chapter 5: Rehearsals and Confusion

Chapter 6: Premiere and Celebratory Dinner

Chapter 7: One More Time

Chapter 8: Second Premiere and Financial Reality


Appendix A: Anton Schindler’s Acquaintance with Beethoven

(March, 1814 – May, 1824)

Appendix B: The
Ludlamshöhle Petition, late February, 1824

Appendix C: Vienna’s Principal Theaters and Halls in Beethoven’s Time

Appendix D: Orchestral Personnel, Kärntnertor Theater, 1822/1824

Appendix E: Choral Personnel, Kärntnertor Theater, 1822/1824

Appendix F: Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’s Volunteer Sign-Up Sheet, 1824

Appendix G: Schindler’s Account of Beethoven’s Post-
Akademie

Dinner in the Prater



Bibliography

Index of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Index of Beethoven’s Other Compositions

General Index

Yazar hakkında

THEODORE ALBRECHT, Professor Emeritus of Music at Kent State University, Ohio, is an award-winning Beethoven scholar. He has authored many important articles on the composer and is the editor of Letters to Beethoven and Other Correspondence (1996) as well as translator and editor of Beethoven’s Conversation Books (Boydell Press).