January 2003 - Nr. 1
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Joins UNESCO List
TWIG - The original score of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has been admitted to the "Memory of the World," the UNESCO register of protected cultural documents. The score was formally added to the list during a gala celebration in Berlin Sunday (January 12), followed by a performance of the symphony by the international orchestra Philharmonie der Nationen, with Justus Frantz conducting.
Perhaps best known for its final movement, containing a choral setting of Friedrich von Schiller’s "Ode an die Freude" (Ode to Joy), Beethoven’s celebrated Ninth Symphony was composed between 1822 and 1824. Part of the original manuscript, some 200 pages long, later came into the possession of the Royal Library of Berlin. In 1941, the manuscript was further divided and scattered across Germany in an effort to protect it from war damage. The pieces of the score were first reunited after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The entire manuscript is now in the Berlin State Library. With its admission to the UNESCO register, the complete score of the symphony will be made accessible via the Internet, according to library director Graham Jefcoate.
With the addition of the Ninth Symphony, the UNESCO Memory of the World list includes 69 documents from around the world. Other German items on the list include the Gutenberg Bible, the papers of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fritz Lang’s 1926 film Metropolis and the early sound recordings of the Prussian Cultural Property Foundation.
Pages from the original score of the Ninth Symphony can be viewed online at http://beethoven.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de.
