Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)

Friday, 7 May 1824, at the Theater am Kärntnertor

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, was heard for the first time on Friday, 7 May 1824, at Vienna's Theater am Kärntnertor. The same programme carried the overture Die Weihe des Hauses and the Kyrie, Credo and Agnus Dei from the Missa solemnis.

Beethoven stood inside the ensemble, beat time, and may have indicated the opening tempos. The performers followed Michael Umlauf, who supplied the direction the orchestra and chorus actually took.

Four voices, and a very loud house

Henriette Sontag, Caroline Unger, Anton Haizinger and Joseph Seipelt were the soloists; they and the chorus entered only in the final movement.

Contemporary reports describe especially disruptive applause during the scherzo and repeated acclamation after the finale. Anton Schindler recorded four rounds at the close, with a fifth beginning as the police commissioner called for quiet.

Accounts agree that Unger drew Beethoven's attention to the applauding audience; they disagree over whether she turned him after the scherzo or at the end of the symphony.

Acclaimed, and not quite a triumph

The concert existed because friends and admirers had petitioned Beethoven to present his new works in Vienna. He hired the Kärntnertor's forces and supplemented them for an unusually demanding programme.

Organization proved difficult and the financial return disappointed him; a varied repeat concert followed on 23 May.

Nor does the audience's enthusiasm establish that a technically difficult premiere went cleanly, and recent study of Beethoven's conversation books challenges the usual claim that he was by then completely deaf.