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) thematic ideas from it. The colossal slow movement of Bruckner's Symphony No. 7, "as usual", takes the same A–B–A–B–A form as the 3rd movement of Beethoven's symphony and also uses some figuration from it. In the opening notes of the third movement of his Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World"), Antonín Dvořák pays homage to the scherzo of this symphony with his falling fourths and timpani strokes. Likewise, Béla Bartók borrows the opening motif of the scherzo from Beethoven's Ninth symphony to introduce the second movement scherzo in his own Four Orchestral Pieces, Op. 12 (Sz 51). One legend