Choral Fantasy (Beethoven) a rather troubled one; according to the composer's secretary, Anton Schindler, it "simply fell apart," a result most likely attributable to insufficient rehearsal time. Because of a mistake in the execution of the piece, it was stopped half way through and restarted. In Ignaz von Seyfried's words: The work includes a sequence of variations on a theme that is widely felt to be an early version of a far better known variation theme, namely the one to which Beethoven set the words of Friedrich Schiller's "Ode to Joy" in his Ninth Symphony. The two themes are compared below. \new Score
Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven) movement, in sonata rondo form that proceeds at a very fast tempo. (The metronome marking supplied by Beethoven himself is semibreve = 84.) This is the first symphonic movement in which the timpani are tuned in octaves, foreshadowing the similar octave-F tuning in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony. Antony Hopkins quotes the entire opening theme of the finale “in order to emphasise the outrageous impropriety of the last roaring C sharp”: “All that precedes it is so delicate in texture, so nimble and light-footed.” Donald Tovey cites the abrupt intrusion of the C sharp as an example of Beethoven’s