I think it is safe to say that Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is one of the most well known symphonies to date. How could anyone forget the melody that has even listeners that are completely uninterested in classical music singing “bum-bum bummmm, Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum” in their heads all day long (I can all but guarantee you sung the melody in your head just now as you read this).
However, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was not always the internationally recognized piece it is today. After all, when a piece premieres, it must experience the same gamble for fame that all other pieces have to. In the case of the 9th Symphony, it definitely had a leg up, given that Beethoven was a famed, though rapidly hard of hearing composer at the time of its premiere. So just like all other pieces, it had a string of milestones that it reached as it climbed to its place in music history. One of these great milestones was its premiere with the New York Philharmonic on May 20, 1846, when it was performed in the United States for the first time.
Interested to learn about Beethoven’s milestones, I was shocked to discover the program for this performance in the digital archives of the New York Philharmonic. This concert featured a range of different works, including works by Weber, Mozart, and Mendelssohn in the first half of the performance. The second half was reserved specifically for Beethoven’s American premiere of the 9th Symphony. According to the program, the concert was a festival concert that took place at “Castle Garden”. It also notes that, should it rain, the concert would take place the next day, leading me to believe that it took place outside.
This program prompts a few questions. First, how significant of a premiere was this? Was there a large amount of people in attendance? Was the piece perceived the same as it was when Beethoven first premiered it? Clearly, the work made its mark on American audiences now, as it is an extremely well known and often performed piece. However, I would be curious to learn how this premiere differed from its original premiere 20 years into the future in a different country.
While the discovery of this program does prompt a lot of questions, one thing is certain: while Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was his last, it was certainly not a symphony that will soon be forgotten, even now, almost 200 years since its premiere.
