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) C from the opening finally gets an "explanation": “and now it appears that Beethoven has held that note in reserve, wherewith to batter at the door of some immensely distant key. Out bursts the theme then, in F sharp minor.” A few bars later, there is a stunning modulation in which this key is "hammered down" by a semitone, arriving instantaneously at the home key of F major. The symphony ends in good humour on a very long passage of loud tonic harmony. Tchaikovsky called this movement, "One of the greatest symphonic masterpieces of Beethoven." Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven) The