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. 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