Anthem of Europe Anthem of Europe "Anthem of Europe" is the anthem of the Council of Europe and the European Union. It is based on "Ode to Joy" from the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony composed in 1823, and is played on official occasions by both organisations. Friedrich Schiller wrote the poem "An die Freude" ("To Joy") in 1785 as a "celebration of the brotherhood of man". In later life, the poet was contemptuous of this popularity and dismissed the poem as typical of "the bad taste of the age" in which it had been written. After Schiller's death, the poem provided
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) was done between autumn 1822 and the completion of the autograph in February 1824. The symphony emerged from other pieces by Beethoven that, while completed works in their own right, are also in some sense "sketches" (rough outlines) for the future symphony. The Choral Fantasy Opus. 80 (1808), basically a piano concerto movement, brings in a choir and vocal soloists near the end for the climax. The vocal forces sing a theme first played instrumentally, and this theme is reminiscent of the corresponding theme in the Ninth Symphony (for a detailed comparison, see Choral Fantasy). Going further back, an earlier