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
A Song of Joy at number 14 and was the only Top 40 hit for Ríos. In the United Kingdom, the song reached number 16 on the British pop chart. In Germany, the song is the most successful pop hymn ever. The single sold over four million copies worldwide. A Song of Joy "A Song of Joy" ("Himno de la alegría") is the title of a popular rock song by the Spanish singer and actor Miguel Ríos. The song is set to the tune the Ninth Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, as arranged by Waldo de los Rios, who specialized in arranging classical music