Beethoven

Ninth and last of the "immortal" symphonies of Beethoven is the "Choral" Symphony in D Minor. The Western World celebrates its centenary this year.

Napoleonic noise was filling the world when Beethoven first dreamed in D Minor--a combination of orchestra and voice that should recapitulate the struggle and ultimate victory of humanity. It was several years later that Beethoven wrote to London asking what the Philharmonic Society would be likely to pay for a manuscript symphony. The offer was -L-50. In 1824 the manuscript was delivered--

"Grosse Sinfonie, geshrieben fur die Philharmonische Gesellschaft in London, Von Ludwig Van Beethoven. Erster Satz."

Beethoven, absolutely deaf, once said: "He who can enter into the spirit of my music will be beyond the reach of the world's misery." His "Ninth" sublimates his own struggle; it closes with a version of Schiller's Hymn to Joy:

Millions, loving, I embrace you,

All the world this kiss I send.

The deaf composer beat time at its first presentation in Vienna. He could not hear the applause. A musician touched him, pointed to the thousand clapping hands.

Hundreds of concerts have marked the centenary in the U. S. Two major series have been given in Minneapolis under Henri Verbrugghen and in New York under Walter Damroseh.

In April, Mr. Damroseh will open a series in Paris. Meanwhile the 1,001st memorial is being erected--this one at the lodging house occupied by Beethoven when he visited Prague.

Beethoven died in Vienna in 1827. Kings walked to his grave. And later, Wagner said: "Until a Raphael be struck with blindness in the full freshness of his powers, Beethoven is without a compeer in the history of all ages, either in misery or in bliss."