Anthem of Europe (Ode to Joy, Symphony no. 9)

Completed in 1824, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony quickly won a place in the public imagination that it has never surrendered. Its finale brings Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy into the symphonic world, making the Ninth the first symphony to incorporate human voices on this scale. In 1985, Herbert von Karajan’s arrangement of the Ode became the official anthem of the European Union. The work has therefore lived two lives at once: as a monumental symphony and as a widely recognised symbol of unity and hope.