Ode to Joy Decoded

Beethoven's so called "Ode to Joy" [but perhaps always Ode to Freedom, even before 1989] is possibly the most famous, best loved, music of all time.

It is the 4th Movement of the 9th Symphony, where Beethoven resorted to choral expression using the words of Schiller to get his message out there.

But in getting there it seems Beethoven saw that he first had to "sack" certain other music, and the controversy rages to this day as to WHICH other music had to go.  All of this would appear to happen in the first 6 1/2 minutes at which point a soloist proclaims Beethoven's OWN words:

 "Oh friends, not these tones!
Let us raise our voices in more
Pleasing and more joyful sounds!"

The controversy would seem to center upon  a determination of "these" and it seems to me the matter is confused by the fact that while he sacks all three of the initial Movements of THIS Symphony by about 2:43, he does not make his proclamation until about 6:30.

It seems totally understandable that he wanted to keep all the choral parts together [and other reasons], and who would dare question a genius, but for the benefit of us mere mortals I have made a variation below where as soon as he does his famous fist pump at 2:43 to say "YES, I got rid of my demons", he goes straight to his proclamation.

That means that the ORCHESTRAL Ode to Joy theme that then takes over blends seamlessly into the choral improvements of the theme that continue to the end of the Movement.

Please take a listen how this might have worked [with Beethoven of course making smooth transitions].

Here are the only discussions I have seen on this matter:

1.  from Timothy Judd

"In the final movement of the Ninth, Beethoven quotes the themes of each preceding movement, musically rejecting each and moving forward with the transcendental “Ode to Joy.” "

2.  from Henry Feldman

"Could a soothing Adagio end this symphony, so stentorian at the start? Not on your life! Beethoven begins the Finale in turmoil, with an operatic-style uproar that the Germans call a Schreckensfanfare ('horror fanfare'). Thus announced, the cellos (with basses in unison) step forward to sing recitativo. Offered tiny samples from each earlier movement in turn, they interrupt and apparently reject the recent music. Clearly the cellos are trying to say something, but they lack the words.

Now a breath of new melody--you all recognize it, but somehow it would seem familiar and welcome even if you didn't--is whispered and seemingly accepted. The cellos close their recitativo and take a first try at this little D major tune, without harmonization. More instruments drift in on the next verse, and a blaring tutti seems to settle matters: this will be our theme.

Flute and oboe sound a doubtful note, and suddenly we are plunged into the Schreckensfanfare again. This time a baritone steps forward, and he says it in words: Not these sounds! Something more joyful! And off he goes with Schiller's stirring poetry, the Ode to Joy. The chorus joins in with enthusiasm, and the solo quartet performs some strenuous variations, still in the key of D. Swelling, the chorus is on the road to a conventional modulation into A, when without warning it veers into the ditch on F major ("vor Gott!"), leaving us flattened and gasping for breath. What could possibly come next?"

3.  from Agamemnon Basileus

"O Freunde nicht diese töne is an exceedingly enigmatic, ironic utterance. Critical opinion, for the greater part I believe, is that it refers to the so-called Schreckensfanfare (and I also believe it was Wagner who so called it). Others consider it to refer to the preceding movements, or all purely instrumental music. Still others take it to refer to all three things.
I take it as most obviously referring to the Schreckensfanfare and the quotations from the preceding three movements, doubly ironic in that the clouds of at-times severe, elusive music in an instant are dispelled by the sound of a narrative voice, which promises clarity, and in that the meaning of the words uttered by the narrator are just as elusive." 

4.  from my own UTube video - Eclipsolypse Now