Between the Ears

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was performed for the first time in Vienna on May 7, 1824 in the Theater am Kärntnertor at the heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. An epic orchestral piece, it ends with a choral setting of An die Freude, which has become a cornerstone of the Western classical music canon. The Ode to Joy, a catchy tune and eminently whistleable, has since had a life of its own, travelling far and wide across 200 years to the present day. This exploration brings together fragments and scenes from the BBC archive with reflections from musicologists Esteban Buch, Robert Fink, Lydia Goehr and Naomi Waltham-Smith.