Friedrich Schiller van Beethoven said that a great poem is more difficult to set to music than a merely good one because the composer must rise higher than the poet – "who can do that in the case of Schiller? In this respect Goethe is much easier," wrote Beethoven. There are relatively few famous musical settings of Schiller's poems. Notable exceptions are Beethoven's setting of "An die Freude" ("Ode to Joy") in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, Johannes Brahms' choral setting of "Nänie" and "Des Mädchens Klage" by Franz Schubert, who set 44 of Schiller's poems as Lieder, mostly for
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) a new concert hall), conducted by the English-born George Loder with the choral part translated into English for the first time. Richard Wagner conducted the symphony many times in his career. His last performance took place in 1872 at a concert to mark the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Wagner later published an essay entitled "The rendering of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony" in which he described the changes he made to the orchestration (see above) for the 1872 performance. The London Philharmonic Choir debuted on 15 May 1947 performing the Ninth Symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton