The Sonata-Form Finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Author(s): Ernest H. Sanders

Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer, 1998), pp. 54-60
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746791
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The Sonata-Form Finale
Ninth Symphony
ERNEST H. SANDERS
For any exegetical approachto a work of art it
is the historian's patent obligation that his cri-
teria and method be consistent with what we
know or can reasonablypresume about the pro-
cesses of creative thinking of its time and its
originator.The credibility of a musical analysis
thus hinges on its compatibility with histori-
cally appropriatemodes of conception. A nega-
tive case in point is Felix Salzer's Schenkerian
approach to the polyphony of Perotinus with
its anachronistic disregardof the practical and
theoretical conditions of that composer's craft.'
An explication of the first movement of a "clas-
sical" symphony that eschews or misrepresents
the structural design generally referred to as
19th-CenturyMusic XXII/1(Summer 1998). ? by The Re-
gents of the University of California.
1FelixSalzer, "Tonality in EarlyMedieval Polyphony:To-
wards a History of Tonality," Music Forum 1 (1967), 35-
98.
54
of Beethoven's
sonata form would likewise have to be faulted
for neglect of a fundamental frame of reference.
Sonata form's exposition, development, reca-
pitulation, and, usually, coda combine to un-
fold the expansion of and from the tonic key in
individual and complex ways. Its well-known
modulatory, developmental, and recapitulatory
processes reveal that fundamental mode of mu-
sical thought and architectonic structure justly
recognized as a variegated genus; sonata form
may be greatly modified and still retain its
explicative power.
Such a stricture would also seem to apply to
similar discussions of symphonic finales, since
none written by the majorViennese composers
between ca. 1785 and ca. 1820 (and, for that
matter, none composed for many years after
1822)fails to exhibit, each in its particularman-
ner, important features of sonata form or rondo-
sonata form. The majorexception, Beethoven's
Eroica, displays a unique combination of or-
ganic variational growth with the developmen-
tal and recapitulatory procedures of sonata
form.2Both of these serve the well-known pur-
pose of unfolding the ever more gloriously he-
roic aspects of the theme's song, whose efflo-
rescence finally pervades the entire texture and
covers up its earthbound roots.
Several commentators, however, have seen
the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as
an exception, and James Webster, in a new
view of the form of that movement, also re-
gards the compositional thinking denoted by
the term sonata form as inapplicable. The nov-
elty of his thesis, in an essay entitled "The
Form of the Finale of Beethoven's Ninth Sym-
phony," merits detailed citation and examina-
tion of its tenets. The operative terms of his
approach are multivalence and through-com-
position: "Precisely its heterogeneous charac-
ter suggests the pertinence of a multivalent
approach. I hear the finale of the Ninth as
through-composed: every section remains in-
complete or leads seamlessly to the next in
such a way that no large-scale closure takes
place until the end."3The task of "what is now
(especially in opera studies) sometimes called
'multivalent' analysis [is] to study each princi-
pal domain . . . independently" before recom-
bining "the results into a comprehensiveview."4
2Fora reading of the "progressivelyunfolding largerstruc-
ture" of the movement, see Elaine R. Sisman, "Tradition
and Transformationin the Altemating Variationsof Haydn
and Beethoven," Acta Musicologica 62 (1990), 171, 175-
76.
3james Webster, "The Form of the Finale of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony," Beethoven Forum 1 (1992), 25-62 (ci-
tation from pp. 27-28). The term "through-composition,"
as applied by Webster to instrumental compositions, has
certain taxonomic problems. "In general usage," Webster
stated in an earlierpublication, "a 'through-composed'work
is one [characterized by] ... dynamic or gestural phenom-
ena (run-on movements, recalls, unresolved instabilities,
lack of closure, and so forth)." In contrast to this term,
which thus applies to the entirety (or at least more than
one movement) of an applicable multimovement work,
the term "progressive form" is defined as designating
nonsymmetrical musical form in individual movements,
which are marked by "instability, continual development,
freely composed recapitulations"(Webster,Haydn's "Fare-
well" Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style [Cam-
bridge, 1991], pp. 7-8; see also pp. 399 and 401: "Progres-
sive form [single movements]"; "throughcomposition [be-
tween movements]").Although these definitions applypar-
ticularly well to the entire Ninth Symphony, Webster in
his essay on its finale transfersthe term "through-compo-
sition" to that movement.
4Webster,Haydn's "Farewell"Symphony, pp. 4-5.
The "domains" specifically applicable to the ERNEST H.
SANDERS
movement at issue are listed in Webster'sTable Finale of
2A as "text (form, topics); musical topics [such Beethoven's
Ninth
as dissonance, joy, march, brotherhood and
prayer, etc.]; performing forces; meter; tempo
(generic);keys."5
In section V of his essay, Webster presents
his view of
Beethoven'suse of the techniquesof through-com-
position to createa sense of process,to shape the
finale as a progression, which points toward and
eventually achieves its goal.
This goal ... is what can only be called a new
musical state of being. This state does not arrive
until the end, in the hitherto undervalued conclud-
ing sections 10 and 11 [mm. 763-940], which form
the climax of the entire finale.
Among the through-compositional methods
Beethoven is said to have employed in this
finale, Webster lists "continuous progressions
at the ends of sections" leading from one sec-
tion to another without a break; "avoidance of
closure and of structural cadences in the tonic;
. .. run-on construction without pause at the
beginnings" of some sections; "continual de-
velopment of important musical motives; cre-
scendos on the largest scale, affecting not only
dynamics but the performing forces." And he
concludes that the "finale avoids any sense of
large-scaleclosure until the very end," the final
section being "the only one that ends with a
full cadence in the tonic and a rest."6
Rather puzzlingly, Webster opens the next
section of his essay with the observation that
"a second [?]central aspect of through-compo-
sition in this finale is what we may call its
gestural character: its constant urge to move
forward, to avoid coming to rest" and again
points to its "many large-scale crescendos ....
from soft to loud, from single parts to the full
ensemble, from instruments alone to voices,
and so forth" as "anotherprogressive feature."7
He presents copious musical examples and two
elaborately detailed tables (nos. 1 and 2) in sup-
'Webster,"TheFormof the Finale,"p. 32.
6Ibid.,pp. 44-45.
7Ibid.,pp. 50-51. The term "progressive"is presumably to
be understoodas in n. 3 above.
55
 19TH port of his view of Beethoven's compositional
CENTURY
MUSIC procedure.
To buttress his presentation, Webster pre-
cedes it with critical descriptions and dismiss-
als of the writings of his many predecessors,
including this writer's,8 who "apparently . . .
first introducedthe now commonplace idea that
the Ninth Symphony finale is based on sonata
form."9 He grants that "it seems reasonable
enough-notwithstanding the absence of a
meaningful tempo change-to hear the succes-
sion Recitative-Joy (secs. 1-2 [mm. Iff.; 92ff.])
as analogous to the introduction and allegro of
8See my "Formand Content in the Finale of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony,"Musical Quarterly50 (1964),59-76.
9Webster,"The Formof the Finale,"p. 38. He persuasively
refutes (pp. 39-40) the "votaries" of the notion that the
finale of the Ninth itself consists of four movements. (Otto
Baensch, however, who accordingto Websterwas the first
to adumbratethis notion [p.39], raisedit only to dismiss it
as unworkable [in his Aufbau und Sinn des Chorfinalesin
Beethovens neunter Symphonie (Berlin,1930), p. 20 n. 1].)
More recently, the view of the finale as a four-movement
form was presented by Ernest F. Livingstone ("Das
Formproblemdes 4. Satzes in Beethovens 9. Symphonie,"
Musikwissenschaftlichen,Berichtuiberden Internationalen
KongressBonn 1970, ed. CarlDahlhaus et al. [Kassel,1971],
pp. 494-97), who largely disregardedthe crucial disposition
of key areas in his lopsided view of structure based on
attempts at giving often isolated events similar motivic
significance. Leo Treitler presents four-movement form
and sonata form as alternativeviews of the movement, but
then seems to adopt the latter in his extended discussion
("History, Criticism, and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,"
this journal3 [1980], 197, rpt. in Music and the Historical
Imagination [Cambridge,Mass., 1989],pp. 25-26). He does
not seem to "conflate" the two approaches, as Webster
states ("The Form of the Finale," p. 40). Most recently,
David B. Levy (Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony [New
York, 1995], pp. 91-121) has offeredhis view of the finale
as a four-movement composition, resulting from his recog-
nition of the differences in tempo, meter, orchestration,
and other elements. He, however, disregardsthe cohesive
and propulsive import of tonal and developmental phe-
nomena, thus, for instance, leading him to designate as
"scherzo" the heroic events in 6 meter-a "movement"
that cannot possibly be said to "end" where tempo and
meter change. (See n. 16 below.) Moreover, the double
fugue is the product and consequence of the events follow-
ing the orchestral fugal episode, not a new beginning pro-
viding a simultaneous review of thematic materials, com-
parable,as Levy argues,to the successive review (andrejec-
tion) at the beginning of the finale of the thematic essences
of the previous movements. Althoughhe claims that "there
are several compelling reasons to identify the events start-
ing in m. 655 as the beginning of the last 'movement' of
the finale," this is the only one he adduces(p. 115).
56
a symphony first movement."10His criticisms
of this "hypothesis" are: (1) the modulation of
the first exposition being "denied stability,"
"sec. 2 cannot be heard as a sonata exposition
[because] the dissonant fanfare unexpectedly
breaks in again"; (2) "not only must the puta-
tive introduction be repeated along with the
repetition of the putative exposition . . . , but,
even worse, [(3)] the putative 'second theme'
(the alla marcia) appears only in that repeti-
tion." . . . [(4)].the central [?] slow section 8
[mm. 595-654] is demoted to a mere 'bridge'
between two reprises (7 and 9 [mm. 543-94 and
655-729])"; (5) the hypothesis "egregiously ig-
nores the lack of any recapitulation of the puta-
tive second theme (the alla marcia)." Two fur-
ther objections turn up on subsequent pages:
(6) the designation of the "orchestralfugue" as
"the development of a sonata form" is nugatory
because of its relative brevity,12and, as men-
tioned above, (7) the final two sections (mm.
763-842 and 851-940), separated by an eight-
measure "transition"-see Table 1, p. 30) have
been "hithertoundervalued"and "marginalized
as mere 'coda'." Webster's conviction that for-
mal categories such as introduction, exposi-
tion, coda, sonata form, etc. would straitjacket
l?Webster,"The Form of the Finale," p. 38. In Table 2A,
Webster describes the "Tempo (generic)"of the finale up
to and excluding the completed modulation to B6majoras
"fast," though the quarternotes of the very fast (Presto)
passagesare stipulatedto move at a speed 80 percenthigher
than those of the music (Allegro assai-rather fast) they
precede.
"Ibid.,pp. 46, 38. I take this opportunity to point out that
the editors of the Musical Quarterly insisted that I add a
summary table, such as the one printed as appendixto my
article; only there does the term "second theme" appear.
(To obviate misunderstandings,I added a note that such
tables "emphasize sectionalization at the expense of the
essential dynamic continuity of a composition.") Even so,
the terminological analogy seems entirely justified. Cor-
rection of three misprints: p. 62, line 20: 259 and 275; p.
65, line 13: ever;p. 74, line 20: define the tonal center.
'2Webster,"The Form of the Finale," pp. 38 and 42. This
criticism is immediatelyprecededby the remarkthat "there
is after all no law that the large sections of a movement
must be comparablein length." In any case, the temporal
proportionsof the two "expositions," the "development,"
and the "recapitulation"are approximately 4:5:2:5:7. In
my article of 1964 (p. 68, n. 24), I improperlyincluded the
"introductorymaterial" in my calculations, with the re-
sult, cited by Webster("TheFormof the Finale,"p. 42 and
n. 24), that the "development"was stated to be about one-
third as long as each "exposition."
the thrusting continuity of the "through-com-
posed" finale leads him to the assertion that
any such conceptual approaches are "doomed
to failure" and therefore "will not do."13
In consonance with his multivalent method,
Webster presents in Tables 1 and 2 the rubric
"key" as part of his egalitarian inventory of the
"domains" of the finale of the Ninth.14 In gen-
eral, his comments on tonally significant events
seem similarly couched in nonvaluational nar-
rative terms. "Both [secs.] 5 and 6 [Alla marcia
and fugue] are outside the tonic."15
We have returned to the tonic; . . . the entire long
section 8 [mm. 595-654], notwithstanding its musi-
cal and programmatic importance [sic], is tonally
unstable, moving from IV to V9. The next section in
the tonic is 9, the double fugue; here, too, however,
the fugue breaks off in a manner somewhat reminis-
cent of section 7 [the choral rendition of the poem's
first stanza],16and we revert to the topics of prayer
(m. 730 ...) and the hymn (m. 745 .. .). At the end of
this hymn ... Beethoven .. . again closes in IV (mm.
757-62 .. .). Thus neither of the two climactic state-
ments of the Ode to Joy in the tonic, sections 7 and
9, effects closure.
. . . Even the famous cadenza-like concluding
passage for the four soloists not only modulates to
the remote B major (#VI)but ends on a dissonant,
unstable six-four tonic chord, from which point yet
another transition leads back to the tonic .... The
astonishing result is that the only structuralcadences
with closure occur in the very last section. There is
no more impressive example of through-composi-
tion in the entire literature.17
pp.61, 50, 31, and61.
13Ibid.,
14InTable2C (ibid.,p. 33), "key"is replacedby "tonality";
the latter categorycontains,amongothers,the symbol
iV9.
"Ibid.,p. 47.
'6Not"ofthe entireOdeto Joy."The allegedsimilarityis
tonallynonexistent,since section7 unexpectedlyhaltson
the subdominant,while the doublefuguedoesnot "break
off,"but endswith a solidtoniccadence;see below.
'7Webster, "TheFormof the Finale,"p. 50;see also56-60.
Butcertainlyin a tonalsense the cadenzadoesnot "end"
6
on a chord,which is in fact the typicalantepenultimate
chordof finalcadencesin cadenzas.The customarysubse-
quenttrill, preparedby the bassesin mm. 841-42,is here
shapedinto stylized orchestralalternations,symbolizing
the joyfulreturnfromthe literallyec-staticB-majorexal-
tation(firstadumbrated in the slow movement'svisionary
CV-major episode,mm. 91-96).
It is apparent that, as stated earlier, Webster ERNESTH.
SANDERS
refers to tonal events solely as occurrences of Finale of
no special significance in the movement's Beethoven's
Ninth
"through-composed" progress. Unquestionably,
all temporal works of art aim for their termina-
tions,18 and there are some compositions of so
inexorably terminal a nature that they are driven
to their end from the very beginning, not ever
taking time for cadential articulations, as, for
instance, the ghostly finale of Chopin's Piano
Sonata, op. 35.19 But, to quote Carl Dahlhaus's
cogent summary, in the period under discus-
sion "tonal harmony plays an essential part in
the construction of form . . . and the larger
forms . . . rest on key dispositions that play an
essential role in the inner structuring."20
Webster's analysis, with its imposition of the
determinative concepts of through-composition
and multivalence, neutralizes the fundamental
significance of tonal and other procedures and
fails to search for their musicopoetic structural
motivations.21
18Onlythe ending of a composition enables us to arrive at
an ultimate evaluation of its events; cf. Walter Wiora,
"Musik als Zeitkunst," Die Musikforschung10 (1957), 21.
'9Anotherexample of the suppression of cadential articu-
lation is the "Storm"in Beethoven's PastoralSymphony, a
terrifying event beyond human control, which therefore
is, properlyspeaking, not a movement at all, but a turbu-
lent developmentalNeapolitan extension of the dominant.
Three times the bass aims at the dominant-(1) mm. 1-35:
steady chromatic rise, with a powerful eruption on the
tonic; (2) mm. 35-49: descending thirds, confirming the
previous arrivaland launching; (3) mm. 49-136: extended
development, leading to the vespertide of the finale.
20"Tonality,"New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musi-
cians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London,1980), vol. 19, p. 54.
21Theseare essential concerns. Significant examples are
the choice of the relative minor as the key of the slow
movement of the Eroica; the structure of its last move-
ment; the role of prophetic ennoblement of the tonic key
played by C major in the slow movement of the Fifth
Symphony. Mahler's symphonies are shaped by such per-
vasive relationalandstructuralaspects.In some of Brahms's
laterworks, too, there areproceduresrequiringthe listener's
speculative alertness to their likely musicopoetic func-
tion. Why, for instance, is the development section of the
first movement of the third violin sonata (op. 108), be-
cause of its total tonal stasis, in effect an antidevelopment?
And why did Brahms choose the passacaglia as the form
for the finale of his Fourth Symphony? What were the
reasons for his avoidance in the movement of the
antinomies (keys, themes) of sonata form and their puis-
sant resolution? The whole monolithic movement is
monothematic and monotonal, to its magnificently grim
E-minor conclusion (finally overcoming its theme's
impedient A#)-truly a final statement.
57
 19TH The finale of Beethoven's Ninth is not only
CENTURY
MUSIC tonally varied, as Websterobserves, but its con-
tinuity is also cadentially articulated in a vari-
ety of purposive ways uniquely characteristic
of sonata form. A renewed demonstration of
these facts must take his criticism of the appli-
cability of the latter as its point of departure.22
It is significant that in his demonstration of the
"through-composed" continuity of the finale
of the Ninth Webster sets it against a totally
rigid schema of sonata form. It is, of course, in
its particular way "a modified sonata form."23
A principal objection to Webster'scriticisms
(1) and (2) must be to the adverb "unexpect-
edly," concerning the second appearanceof the
fanfare.The preceding assault on the dominant
key leading to the timorous, tonally errant,
decapitated variant of the first phrase of the
main theme masquerading as a second theme
(mm. 192-207), logically and inevitably in the
scheme of things leads to the second terror
fanfare,whose cataclysmic force is indeed stun-
ning. Both the tonal plan (the essential role of
B6and B6major here and in the first and third
movements24)and the poetic idea that animate
and shape the movement account for the cata-
strophic rejection of A major, approachedafter
the brassy elan terrible of the fourth statement
of the theme.25In a manner reminiscent of first
movements of concertos,26 the voices now
present another exposition, which in due course
modulates with striking rapidity to A major
once again (cf. horns and trumpets, mm. 201-
02 and 326-29), only to lift the modulatory
process half a step higher to B6majorby way of
that overwhelming turn to its dominant. The
vision of the Cherub standing before God leads
with compelling necessity to the stanza that
Beethoven chose out of turn from Schiller's
poem, because it is the first to present an in-
22Everyeffort has been made to restrict to the necessary
minimum the inevitable references to the article cited in
n. 8.
23Seemy "Formand Content," pp. 67-68; emphasis added.
Modifications of sonata form for musicopoetic or dramatic
purposes were nothing new. An especially fine example is
the Bk-majortrio in act I of Mozart'sLe nozze di Figaro.
24Ibid.,passim. Websterdeals with this issue ("Formof the
Finale," pp. 51ff.), citing "earlierliterature" (n. 35); more
specific attribution would seem to have been called for.
25Seemy "Formand Content," p. 66; also p. 71 and n. 41.
26Ibid.,p. 68, n. 23.
58
junction-a call to battle.27 The consequent
musicopoetic symbolism of the next section is
the developmental elimination of B6and B1ma-
jorwith their earlierdepressiveor escapist func-
tions, thus for the first time enabling the cho-
rus to intone and (on a higher level) recapitu-
late the thematic first stanza.
Only after the heroic purifying battle in the
service of humanity's divinely ordained role is
accomplished is mankind accordedthe sense of
awe and the bliss that come with the recogni-
tion of the "dearFather."28Webster objects ([4]
stated above) to the "demotion" of the slow
passages (mm. 595-654) "to a mere bridge."He
seems, nonetheless, to accord them that very
role. Not only does he describe the initial
melody as "tonally ambiguous" and the "en-
tire long section . . . [as] tonally unstable," but
he recognizes that tonally "it is bound to the
larger context: it leads from the subdominant
G to ... V9, which in turn resolves into the
double fugue."29In the context, that descrip-
tion of events is entirely characteristic of the
function of recapitulatory bridges, a term
Webster rejects, because he apparently wishes
to restrict "bridge"to some sort of undefined
brevity. But the plagal turn is not only quite
common at that point in movements in sonata
form, but also serves the genuflectory text.30
27Webster'sdescription of this stanza as the "somewhat
unattractive image of male sun-heroes storming through
the heavens to victory" (p. 35) seems to betray a crucial
and lamentably fashionable lack of historical empathy. A
literally exotic interpretation of the Alla marcia section
(and subsequent development) is presented by Wilhelm
Seidel in his "9. Symphonied-Moll op. 125," in Beethoven:
Interpretationenseiner Werke,ed. Albert Riethmiiller,Carl
Dahlhaus, AlexanderL. Ringer (Laaber,1994), pp. 268-69.
Basing his view on its janissarycharacter,he regardsit as
a bizarreversion of the Joy melody, quite pervertedmetri-
cally, an insolent war of barbariansmocking the new hymn
and the society it represents;the Durchfiihrungis said to
express the battle of the heroic fraternityand its contemp-
tuous opponents. It seems hardly possible to misunder-
stand more egregiously Beethoven's use of syncopation to
energize and intensify. Its purpose here is surely, espe-
cially in view of the inexorablysteady beats of the percus-
sion, to convey the warriors'springy,electric readinessfor
the ensuing battle that brings about the recapitulatory
victory.
28Fordetails, see my "Formand Content," pp. 67-72.
29Webster,"The Formof the Finale,"pp. 35, 50, and 42.
30The Benedictus of the Missa solemnis fulfills compa-
rable plagal functions; see my "Beethoven'sTreatment of
Form and Content in His Missa solemnis," Festschrift
Walter Wiora zum 90. Geburtstag, Mainzer Studien zur
 The double fugue, "positing the divine and
the human as contrapuntally complementary
. .. shares compound meter with the section in
B1 major that concluded the second exposi-
tion."3' Webster's criticisms (3) and (5) disre-
gardthis important parallelism. As to (6), see n.
12; more important is the question of the func-
tion of the so-called fugal episode beyond sim-
ply being one of a sequence of events. Webster
does not answer it because he does not pose it.
Finally, there is his complaint (7) that the final
two sections have been undervalued by being
marginalized as mere coda. But, in the first
place, only a rigidly formalistic attitude could
see a "mere" coda as devoid of functional sig-
nificance; second, its description in 1964 could
not possibly be apprehendedas an undervalua-
tion.32 It contains tonal (the turn to B major)
and thematic events (the enrapturedjumble of
motives drawn from both themes,33which were
last stated in the double fugue concluding the
recapitulation) that are characteristic of the
mature Beethoven's concept of coda.34
Musikwissenschaft35, ed. Christoph-HellmutMahlingand
Ruth Seiberts (Tutzing, 1997), pp. 404-05.
31Seemy "Form and Content," pp. 69, 76. Both sections
also share the same metronome marking, which seems
appropriatefor the double fugue, usually overdriven in
present-day performances. It is quite slow, however, for
the entire 8 section of the movement; cf. Webster, "The
Form of the Finale," p. 39, n. 18. One could speculate that
Beethoven assigned 84 to the double fugue and then, mind-
ful of the metrical and structuralparallelism, assigned the
same metronomic speed to the Bt-majorepisode, to which
ca. 96 would seem more appropriate.Richard Taruskin
("Resistingthe Ninth," this journal 12 [1989],245-46, 255)
has presented a revealing synopsis of conductors'tempi in
recordedperformancesof the Ninth.
32Seemy "Formand Content," p. 69.
33Websterregardsthe imitative passage mm. 782ff. (782-
813; 814-50) as new (p. 56). Just as mm. 767-81, however,
appearlike remnants of the first two phrases of the main
theme, so the motivic content of the remainder of that
section, with its emphatic syncopated F#in mm. 806 and
827, must be recognized as the metamorphosis of its last
sixteen measures. The second section of the coda accom-
modates the secondary thematic material "within a struc-
tural frame that is very reminiscent of that of the main
theme" (see my "Formand Content," p. 69).
34Seemy "Beethoven'sTreatment of Form,"p. 402, n. 13,
and the references cited there, as well as Charles Rosen's
illuminating treatment of the subject of codas in chap. 12
(pp. 297-352) of his Sonata Forms (rev. edn. New York,
1988), the longest chapter in the book. EdwardT. Cone,
with respect to the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony, states parenthetically that "the coda is, of
course, a second development" (Musical Form and Musi-
cal Performance[New York, 1968], p. 47).
Webster's definition of the "through-com- ERNESTH.
SANDERS
posed" nature of the finale of the Ninth derives Finale of
from his view of the absence of significantly Beethoven's
Ninth
perceptible authentic cadences, especially in D
major. Frequency of elision is not, however,
tantamount to absence of structurally impor-
tant joins. Neither is it conceivable that Beetho-
ven would compose a twenty-minute move-
ment without cadential demarcations. In fact,
the first full cadence occurs where one ordi-
narily would expect a semicadence, at the end
of the last measure of the first introduction,
with its high F#evoking the main theme's first
note (mm. 91-92). The tonal design continues
with the bridge modulation, beginning in m.
191 and cadencing in the dominant major (m.
200, fourth beat, to m. 202, and m. 207). This
cadence reappearsin augmentation (mm. 325-
29), although now A major and the modulation
to it are reduced to stepping-stone function,
leading to the cadence in Bl major (mm. 330-
31). The final cadence in Bl major, concluding
the second (complete)exposition, occurs in mm.
429-30. Forobvious melodic reasons, the domi-
nant preparationfor the recapitulation is weak-
ened (m. 542).35The recapitulatory effect of the
D-major cadence is as compelling, however, as
that of the reappearanceof the first stanza (mm.
543-90). After the subdominant of the bridge to
the gate of Heaven (Sternenzelt),36 the recap-
ture of the tonic key is apparentin the cadence
in mm. 650-55. And the end of the recapitula-
tion is definitely emphasized by the cadence in
mm. 728-29 (timpani).
In tonal terms, the coda begins not in m. 763
but in m. 767.37The cadence in mm. 850-51
35Comparemy "Formand Content," p. 67.
36Seealso William Kinderman, "Beethoven's Symbol for
the Deity in the Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony,"
this journal9 (1985), 102-18, and idem, "Beethoven'sCom-
positional Models for the Choral Finale of the Ninth Sym-
phony," in Beethoven's Compositional Process, ed. Will-
iam Kinderman(Lincoln,Neb., 1991),pp. 160-88, esp. 168-
74.
37Thetable in my "Formand Content" should be amended
accordingly.
59
 19TH initiates the second part of the coda, which
CENTJUjRY ends with the prolonged cadence of mm. 900-
03, followed by the multiple cadences of the
coda of the coda. It presents (mm. 918-19) a
concentration of the theme's last phrase before
conclusively leading to two dithyrambicrestate-
ments of the theme's first eight notes (trum-
pets, horns, woodwinds) together with their
simultaneous diminutions in the first violins.
Finally, the descending fifth A-D (first violins,
mm. 936-38; woodwinds, 939-40) provides a
transfiguredcyclic ending for the entire O^
symphony.38
38Ibid.,pp. 69-70, presents a more detailed description of
Beethoven's astonishingly thoughtful motivic procedures
in the coda of the coda. See MaynardSolomon, "Beetho-
ven's Ninth Symphony:A Search for Order,"this journal
10 (1986), 8 (rpt. in Solomon, Beethoven Essays [Cam-
bridge,Mass., 1988],pp. 3-32), for Lewis Lockwood'siden-
tification of the perhaps "fortuitous" relationship of the
rising scale figures in mm. 936-38 and mm. 139-43 (and,
for that matter, mm. 41-43) of the scherzo.

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60