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
String Quartet No. 13 (Beethoven) Ninth Symphony and occasionally elsewhere in Beethoven's work (opening, dance movement, slow movement, finale), except that the middle part of the cycle is repeated: opening, dance movement, slow movement, dance movement, slow movement, finale. After the work's first performance, mixed reactions and his publisher's suggestion convinced Beethoven to substitute a different final movement, one much shorter and lighter than the enormous "Große Fuge". This new finale was written between September and November 1826—and is thus the last substantial piece of composition Beethoven completed before his death. This movement is marked: Beethoven never witnessed a performance of the quartet in its