Choral Fantasy (Beethoven) the "Choral Fantasy" text – universal fraternity with the meeting of arts – evokes similar feelings as the "Ode to Joy" text. Beethoven himself acknowledged the kinship of the two works. In a letter of 1824, when he was writing the Ninth Symphony, he described his project as "a setting of the words of Schiller's immortal "Lied an die Freude" in the same way as my pianoforte fantasia with chorus, but on a far grander scale." The "Choral Fantasy" theme is itself taken from earlier work by Beethoven: it is a slightly modified version of the composer's "Gegenliebe", a lied
Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven) C from the opening finally gets an "explanation": “and now it appears that Beethoven has held that note in reserve, wherewith to batter at the door of some immensely distant key. Out bursts the theme then, in F sharp minor.” A few bars later, there is a stunning modulation in which this key is "hammered down" by a semitone, arriving instantaneously at the home key of F major. The symphony ends in good humour on a very long passage of loud tonic harmony. Tchaikovsky called this movement, "One of the greatest symphonic masterpieces of Beethoven." Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven) The