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Beethoven's Ninth: A Political History. By Esteban Buch, translated by Richard Miller. University of Chicago Press (1427 East 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637-2954; 773-5681550; fax, 773-660-2235; www.press uchicago.edu), 2003. 327 pp. Index, bibliography, music examples, blackand-white illustrations. Hardback, $27.50.
The Ode to Joy's career as political music is bound up with that of the other ideals that underlie the history of the modern Western world. And there is a temptation to regard it as exemplary, or to draw some moral from it. Yet making the history of a symbol into a symbol of history is a delicate operation, (p. 263)
These sentences from the concluding chapter of Beethoven's Ninth: A Political History summarize the challenge Esteban Buch has undertaken: to scrutinize the ways in which this most famous of symphonies has functioned in service of various political agendas from its composition to the present day. This text focuses on the deceptively simple theme of the final movement, the "Ode to Joy," placing its melody and text...