Ode to Joy Ode to Joy "Ode to Joy" (German: ), is an ode written in the summer of 1785 by German poet, playwright, and historian Friedrich Schiller and published the following year in "Thalia". A slightly revised version appeared in 1808, changing two lines of the first and omitting the last stanza. "Ode to Joy" is best known for its use by Ludwig van Beethoven in the final (fourth) movement of his Ninth Symphony, completed in 1824. Beethoven's text is not based entirely on Schiller's poem, and introduces a few new sections. His tune (but not Schiller's words) was adopted as the
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) thematic ideas from it. The colossal slow movement of Bruckner's Symphony No. 7, "as usual", takes the same A–B–A–B–A form as the 3rd movement of Beethoven's symphony and also uses some figuration from it. In the opening notes of the third movement of his Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World"), Antonín Dvořák pays homage to the scherzo of this symphony with his falling fourths and timpani strokes. Likewise, Béla Bartók borrows the opening motif of the scherzo from Beethoven's Ninth symphony to introduce the second movement scherzo in his own Four Orchestral Pieces, Op. 12 (Sz 51). One legend