Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in popular culture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since the Ninth Symphony is such a widely known work of classical music, it has frequently been adapted for use in works of popular culture, particularly film scores, television, and popular music. The following is a partial list of such adaptations:

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  • Beethoven's music was adopted as a national anthem by the UDI regime of Rhodesia. In 1974 it was put to words. (See Rise O Voices of Rhodesia.)[1]
  • Students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square protest broadcast the symphony through loudspeakers in 1989 as a statement against tyranny.
  • A famous performance, conducted by Leonard Bernstein on December 25, 1989 celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall. It substituted Freude ("joy") with Freiheit ("freedom") in the sung text. The orchestra and chorus were drawn from both East and West Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.[2]
  • The Ode to Joy is an unofficial anthem of Nicaragua's FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional).[citation needed]
  • In his report on a visit to the breakaway state of Biafra, Kurt Vonnegut wrote that the Ninth was the country's anthem.
  • It is widely believed, although it is almost certainly untrue, that the playback time specifications of the Sony/Philips Compact Disc were influenced by a desire to accommodate performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on a single disc, without interruption. This requirement has been variously attributed to Herbert von Karajan (a Deutsche Grammophon artist with access to Sony chairman Akio Morita), to Morita's wife, and to Sony president Norio Ohga. The urban legends investigators at snopes.com consider this to be "undecided." According to Philips, it was indeed Ohga who suggested extending the capacity enough to accommodate Beethoven's 9th[1]. More on the possibility of the 9th determining the size of the Compact Disc can be found in CD; it is highly unlikely that this was actually the reason.

  • The fourth movement is the primary opening theme of the U.S. game show Win Ben Stein's Money.[citation needed]
  • An electronic arrangement of the beginning of the second movement, the Scherzo, is used in the theme of Keith Olbermann's program Countdown on MSNBC.[citation needed]
  • The opening measures of the second movement were used as the theme music for an American news broadcast in the 1960s, the Huntley-Brinkley Report.[3]
  • The fourth movement's main theme was used in the milk commercial to the lyrics of "Drink Milk, Love Life" in the 1990's.[citation needed]
  • The beginning of the 4th movement is used as one of the transitional segments that is played in-between songs and usually to a voice saying "XM...Classics" on XM radio's "XM Classics" station.
  • The fourth movement is used as the theme song to the second season of Michael Moore's TV show, The Awful Truth.

  • In The Beatles movie Help!, the Tiger from the Zoo could be settled down by singing the tune of Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
  • In the movie Equilibrium, Agent John Preston starts a LP album and starts to cry as he listens to the beginning of the first movement.
  • In Clockwork Orange the main character Alex Delarge is very fond of the symphony and plays it before sleep every night.

  • In Civilization II, when there's a "We Love" celebration, "Ode to Joy" is played.
  • In Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas, the opening of the Second Movement, the Scherzo, is used in a radio commercial for the fictional product, Kilimanjaro.

  • During the FIFA World Cup 2006 the South Korean supporters used Ode to Joy as their main chant supported by drums.[citation needed]
  • Football fans at a stadium soccer game will often spontaneously chant the famous melody from the fourth movement ("Freude, schöner Götterfunken...") to cheer on the players, albeit usually without the lyrics. It was for example often heard in the background of televised games of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.[citation needed]
  • Professional wrestler Triple H used the Ode to Joy section of the fourth movement as his entrance music during the period when he portrayed a snobby blueblood character.[citation needed]
  • American telecasts of the Olympic Games often feature a portion of the Fourth Movement near the end of the telecast during the montage of video highlights from the Games.[citation needed]

  1. ^ Bristow, Michael Jamieson (2006). Rhodesia. Retrieved on February 3, 2007.
  2. ^ Naxos (2006). Ode To Freedom - Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (NTSC). Naxos.com Classical Music Catalogue. Retrieved on November 26, 2006. This is the publisher's catalogue entry for a DVD of Bernstein's Christmas 1989 "Ode to Freedom" concert.
  3. ^ Schlect, Chris (1996). "Freude, Schöner Götterfunken". Credenda/Agenda 8 (2). Retrieved on 2006-12-08. 
  4. ^ Chen, Raymond (1994). Dog Of Death. Retrieved on January 3, 2007.
  5. ^ Bitterfilms.com. Rejected. Retrieved on January 3, 2007.
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