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Beethoven’s Freude theme—or “Ode to Joy”—is perhaps the most iconic melody ever created. This book sets out to show why the Freude theme has acquired this almost mythic status and what its use in the finale of the Ninth Symphony reveals about the mechanics of tonal composition. The book explains how the finale of the Ninth Symphony offers a crash course in music theory made possible by Beethoven’s extensive training with Neefe, Haydn, Albrechtsberger, and others, and his enormous library of theory treatises, by the likes of Fux, C. P. E. Bach, Riepel, and Koch. That course covers everything from the basics of tonal voice leading and motivic development to advanced topics such as double counterpoint, canon, and ars combinatoria. The book also draws on details from his own students such as Ries and Czerny.
Born in London, Matthew Brown is a British American musicologist who specializes in tonal theory and the music of Claude Debussy. He is currently Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.