Friedrich Schiller van Beethoven said that a great poem is more difficult to set to music than a merely good one because the composer must rise higher than the poet – "who can do that in the case of Schiller? In this respect Goethe is much easier," wrote Beethoven. There are relatively few famous musical settings of Schiller's poems. Notable exceptions are Beethoven's setting of "An die Freude" ("Ode to Joy") in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, Johannes Brahms' choral setting of "Nänie" and "Des Mädchens Klage" by Franz Schubert, who set 44 of Schiller's poems as Lieder, mostly for
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