North Idaho Philharmonia to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Panida

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

There are few more monumental pieces of music — or any human art, really — than Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D minor. Made all the more amazing, by the time it premiered in Vienna on May 7, 1824, the legendary-in-his-own-life composer was already stone deaf — a fact made clear when, at the conclusion of the work, Beethoven had to be prompted by his orchestra to turn around and face the roaring, rapturous audience.

The North Idaho Philharmonia will perform the immortal work Tuesday, Aug. 19 and Wednesday, Aug. 20, both days at 7 p.m., on the Panida Theater stage (300 N. First Ave.).

Conducted by Jan Pellant and in partnership with the Music Conservatory of Sandpoint’s “Music Matters!” educational program, the first night’s performance will be a family concert featuring the first and fourth movements, as well as the “Chorale,” with family tickets for $20 (which includes MCS students and parents admitted with one ticket) and individual general admission tickets for $5. The second night will be a showcase of the full symphony, with adult tickets running $30 and student tickets for $15.

The Ninth and especially its epic “Chorale” — a.k.a. “Ode to Joy,” in reference to the Friedrich Schiller poem of the same name and from which it draws its lyrics — has become a defining leitmotif in world culture over the past 200 years. The instrumental version of “Ode to Joy” has even served as the anthem of the European Union since 1985, symbolizing “the European ideals of freedom, peace and solidarity,” according to the EU’s website.

Composer and Beethoven expert John Suchet, quoted on classicfm.com, wrote, “The Ninth is the culmination of Beethoven’s genius.”

“He uses solo voices in a symphony for the first time,” he wrote, adding, “It is the longest and most complex of all his symphonies, which we may regard as the pinnacle of his achievement, because it is his last symphony — but he was working on his Tenth when he died.”

Schiller’s poem “An die Freude” (“Ode to Joy”) dates to 1785, and opens with the triumphal and aspirational lines:

Joy, thou beauteous godly lightning, 

Daughter of Elysium, 

Fire drunken we are ent’ring 

Heavenly, thy holy home! 

Thy enchantments bind together, 

What did custom stern divide, 

Every man becomes a brother, 

Where thy gentle wings abide.  

Though Schiller came to reject the poem as “detached from reality,” its overall sentiments of humanity transcending division to achieve universal brotherhood appealed to Beethoven’s own politics, which were steeped in the Enlightenment ideals of the 18th and early 19th centuries. He was an early supporter of Napoleon Bonaparte, believing the French Revolution would dissolve class divisions and hereditary nobility, but turned against him as his rule became more authoritarian. 

Unlike Beethoven’s Third Symphony (“Eroica”) and equally famous Fifth Symphony in C minor — both of which were written during the Napoleonic Wars and evoked the heroic revolutionary vision — the Ninth came long after his disenchantment with the emperor and represents a pure expression of the free human spirit, which is just as resonant today as ever.

Doors for the Panida performances are at 6:15 p.m. Tickets available now at sandpointconservatory.org/events.