Ode to Joy himself regarded it as a failure later in his life, going so far as to call it "detached from reality" and "of value maybe for us two, but not for the world, nor for the art of poetry" in an 1800 letter to his long-time friend and patron Christian Gottfried Körner (whose friendship had originally inspired him to write the ode). The lines marked with * have been revised as follows: Academic speculation remains as to whether Schiller originally wrote an Ode to Freedom "(Ode an die Freiheit)" and changed it to an Ode to Joy. "... [T]he thought lies
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) material from each of the preceding three movements – though none are literal quotations of previous music – are successively presented and then dismissed by instrumental recitatives played by the low strings. Following this, the 'Ode to Joy' theme is finally introduced by the cellos and double basses. After three instrumental variations on this theme, the human voice is presented for the first time in the symphony by the baritone soloist, who sings words written by Beethoven himself: <nowiki>"</nowiki>"O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!' Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere".<nowiki>"</nowiki> ("Oh friends, not these sounds! Let us instead strike up