Christ on the Mount of Olives (Beethoven) of the orchestra and chorus at its premiere. He panned Huber's libretto, saying, in an 1824 letter to the Gesellschaft für Musikfreunde, "Let us leave out of consideration "the value" of poems of this sort. We all know that allowances are to be made... so far as I am concerned, I would rather set Homer, Klopstock, Schiller to music. If they offer difficulties to overcome, "these immortal poets" at least are worthy of it." (Beethoven eventually did set Schiller to music in his monumental Ninth Symphony, nearly twenty years later.) The editors at Breitkopf & Härtel agreed with Beethoven's critical
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