[Beethoven's Ninth] Sinfonie mit Schluss-Chor über Schiller Ode: "An die Freude" für grosses Orchester, 4 Solo und 4 Chor-Stimmen componirt [Opus 125: full score]. Symphony for Large Orchestra with Final Chorus on Schiller's "Ode to Joy" for Four Solo and Four Choral Voices for Large Orchestra)

Mainz und Paris / Antwerpen: bey B. Schotts Söhnen / bey A. Schott, 1827. First edition. Hardcover. Very good. Folio (345 by 271 mm). [2], 226, [2: blank] pp. Lithographic title wrappers; engraved title bearing the royal arms of Friedrich William III; engraved musical scores. Wrappers professionally inserted on stubs and bound in. Expertly re-bound to style in speckled calf over sprinkled boards. Mild embrowning at edges, some fore-edges with darker stains, else a very good copy, with clear impressions and notably wide margins.

First edition (second issue), lacking the subscriber's list, but proudly sporting twelve metronome markings between pages 75 and 222. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was first performed on 17 May 1824 at the Kärntnertor, the prestigious Carinthian Gate Theater of Vienna. It was the first major symphony to include a choral finale. In 2001, Beethoven's original, hand-written manuscript of the score, held by the Berlin State Library, was added to the Memory of the World Programme Heritage list established by the United Nations, becoming the first musical score so designated. "In its colossal proportions all his music seems to be contained: an entire life of stress and labour, an entire world of thought and passion and deep brooding insight; it touches the very nethermost abyss of human suffering, it rises 'durch Kampf zum Licht' [through struggle to light] until it culminates in a sublime hymn of joy and brotherhood." (Hadow)

While Beethoven was among the first among important composers to use the metronome as an aid in musical composition and production, the first issue of his Ninth Symphony score (August 1826) does not employ any such markings. In a note dated 13 October 1826, Beethoven provided his publishers with a list of the metronome markings which would appear in the later issues, beginning in December of 1826. In the present copy the first two movements lack any metronome markings at all, the first of which appears on page 75, at the opening of the third movement. These comprise the last twelve (of fifteen) metronome markings listed in the correspondance cited above.

Summary of other issues points: metronome value of 96 which appears on page 96, at the opening of the fourth movement; plate number 2322 (often corrected from 2321); plate numbers lacking on pages 172 and 192; 'frech' for "streng" on page 207. References: Fuld (2000), p. 563; S. Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980) 12: 222-3; Katalog der Sammlung Anthony van Hoboken 2: 502; Hadow, Oxford History of Music 5 (1904), p. 299. Kinsky-Halm, Das Werk Beethovens (new. rev. ed. 2014) 1, p. 819. (Inventory #: 54872)