Union Flags for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in April 2011 bedeck Regent Street in London. The old Argyll Rooms in Regent Street were home to the Philharmonic Society from 1813 to 1830, when they were destroyed by fire. Beethoven was profoundly dismayed by Napoleon’s grab for a united Europe, and the fears and violence into which it threw its states both large and small. Britain’s resistance inspired him to compose his Battle Symphony and Ninth Symphony, as well as piano Variations on God Save the King and Rule Britannia.
ON June 9th, 1817, a letter arrived at Ludwig van Beethoven’s residence in Baden informing him that friends at the Philharmonic Society in London, anxious for his well-being and finances, could offer him 300 guineas for two new symphonies by January 1818, to be conducted by Beethoven himself in the capital.
Beethoven, who had long wanted to visit England, immediately began work on his Ninth Symphony. However, the ‘Hammerklavier’ sonata and other distractions intruded, and the immortal music prompted by Beethoven’s English friends was first heard in Vienna on May 7th, 1824.
The Philharmonic Society renewed their invitation early in 1825, but Beethoven’s health was now in serious decline, so Sir George Smart went to Baden, where the composer guided him through the symphony, while enthusing about the English and ‘God Save the King’.* On his return, Sir George gave the triumphant London premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – ‘composed expressly’ the Philharmonic’s handbills recalled ‘for this Society’ – at the Argyll Rooms on March 21st, 1825.
See our story ‘God Save the King!’. For the downfall of Napoleon, see our posts tagged Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) (21).
Précis
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was first performed in Vienna in 1824, though it had been commissioned for the London stage in 1817. In 1825, a fresh invitation to London was welcomed by Beethoven, but owing to the composer’s persistent ill-health the Ninth Symphony received its London premiere under Sir George Smart, on March 21st that year. (54 / 60 words)
