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The First British Performances of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony:The Philharmonic Society and Sir George SmartArthur Searle

Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 in D minor, op. 125, the ‘Choral’ Symphony, received its firstperformance in the United Kingdom at the concert given by the Philharmonic Society ofLondon on 21 March 1825 in the New Argyll Rooms in Regent Street, near what is nowOxford Circus. The conductor was Sir George Smart (fig. 1), and the orchestra was led byFrançois Cramer; both had been founder members of the Society in 1813. This occasionheads the list of the nineteen performances given in London between 1825 and 1855 whichare the subject of a groundbreaking article by Adam Carse published in 1951.1 Ten of theperformances he lists were given by the Philharmonic Society, and at least two others, givenat the benefit concerts of prominent members of the Society, are likely to have involvedregular Philharmonic artists. In 1951 the archives of the Philharmonic Society were noteasily accessible; now that they have become part of the permanent collections of the BritishLibrary a closer examination of the Philharmonic performances in particular is possible.2

Smart lived until 1867, conducted regularly at the Philharmonic from 1816 until 1844,and played an extensive and energetic part in national musical life, arranging and conductingthe music for two coronations and leading local music festivals across the country. Yet theperformance of 1825 was the only occasion on which he conducted the ‘Choral’ Symphonyat one of the public concerts of the body that had commissioned it. After visiting Beethovenin Vienna later in 1825 he conducted two further performances using Philharmonic artists,one semi-private, the other at a benefit concert of Charles Neate, another Philharmonicmember; but the work did not feature again at the Society’s concerts until the performance

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As so often before I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr Nicolas Bell and Dr Rupert Ridgewell at the British Libraryfor advice and, in particular, for drawing my attention to additional sources, both primary and secondary. O. W.Neighbour, too, has shown his customary kindness in reading my text. I have also received much help, kindly andpatiently given, from Dr Leanne Langley and Jonathan Del Mar. I thank them both, and their invaluablecontributions are acknowledged at specific points in the notes below. As ever, any work I do in the British Librarywould not be possible without the assistance of Richard Morton and Susan Brown.

1 Adam Carse, ‘The Choral Symphony in London’, Music and Letters, xxxii (1951), pp. 47-58. An additionalperformance, of the last movement only, has been identified as given at one of Louis Jullien’s 1841 ‘concertsd’hiver’, David Benjamin Levy, ‘Early Performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: A documentary studyof five cities’ (Ph.D. thesis, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, NY, 1979), p. 157.

2 The main section of the Philharmonic archive was placed on loan in the British Museum and incorporated asLoan 48 in 1962, with minor additions made in subsequent years. A select portion of the manuscript scores fromthe Society’s library had been placed on loan in the Museum as early as 1914, under the call mark Loan 4. Theremaining MS scores were added to Loan 4, by this time in the British Library, in 1982. In 2002 the entirecollection was acquired by the Library, and incorporated as RPS MSS 1-417. This article is a product of workin progress on an annotated catalogue of the scores, and draws on the collection for its main sources.

The First British Performances of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony: The Philharmonic Society andSir George Smart

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conducted by Ignaz Moscheles in 1837. Only then did the work begin to gain an establishedplace in the Philharmonic repertory.3 A largely hostile reception from the English musicalpress reportedly accounted in large measure for this twelve-year gap. But there is also someindication of factional division within the Society concerning the work. These twocontributory causes almost certainly coincided in the scornful view of the work repeatedlyexpressed in the influential journal The Harmonicon, edited by William Ayrton, also one ofthe Society’s founder members.


Fig. 1. Sir George Smart. Oil painting by William Bradley 1829; National Portrait Gallery. With permission.

3 Performances by the Philharmonic Society from 1837 until 1855 will be the subject of a later article.


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The music of Beethoven had been central to the repertory of the Society from its foundationin 1813. A Beethoven symphony had been played at each of the first two concerts of the Society’sinaugural season, and another concluded the first half of the last concert of the season; on eachoccasion the pieces were announced on the programme card simply as ‘Symphony – Beethoven’.At least one work by Beethoven featured in each of the other 1813 concerts as well, among themthe Prometheus Overture and chamber works, including the Septet op. 20, which very soonbecame a Philharmonic staple. A printed catalogue of the Society’s Library was underconsideration as early as 1814, evidence of a determination to expand both the repertory and theresources available for performance; by the time this finally appeared in the early 1820s, theSociety owned materials for all of the first eight symphonies of Beethoven, as well as overtures,vocal pieces and chamber music.4

The general circumstances of the relationship which developed over more than a decadebetween the Society and Beethoven himself, culminating in their sending £100 in 1827 shortlybefore he died, ‘to be applied to his comforts and necessities during his illness’, have been wellrehearsed since at least the 1870s.5 The particular circumstances of the commissioning and firstLondon performance of the Ninth Symphony illustrate how well embedded the Society was inLondon’s close musical community, and how well connected it was through its members to thewider European musical scene.

The story of the Ninth Symphony began in November of 1822 when at a meeting of theSociety’s Directors – a meeting of rather dubious authority, since only three of the seven werepresent – it was resolved to offer Ludwig van Beethoven £50 for

. . . a M.S. Sym[phon]y. He having permission to dispose of it at the expiration ofEighteen Months after the receipt of it. It being a proviso that it shall arrive duringthe Month of March next . . .

The hope was that it would be in London in time to be rehearsed and performed as part of the1823 season.6 At that time the eight concerts of the Society’s season began in late February orMarch each year and ran until June. Because the symphony was by no means ready to meet thisdeadline, Beethoven sent instead to the Society early in 1823 an overture – ‘Die Weihe desHauses’, op. 124 – as evidence of his good intentions.7 At the time the Philharmonic had aparticularly useful contact with the composer in the shape of Ferdinand Ries, a former pupil andassistant to Beethoven, resident in London from 1813 to 1824. Ries was an active member of theSociety throughout that time, and some of his own symphonies were given their firstperformances at the concerts.8 Beethoven seems first to have mentioned the overture to Ries asearly as December of 1822, and in late January 1823 the Directors resolved to offer the composer

4 RPS MS 392, f. 3v. This elegantly engraved catalogue was some years in preparation and the date when it waseventually printed is uncertain, but has been put at no later than 1824, see A. Hyatt King, Musical Pursuits(London, 1987), p. 153.

5 For example in Doyne C. Bell, Documents, Letters, &c. Relating to the Bust of Ludwig van Beethoven, Presentedto the Philharmonic Society of London (London, 1871). Two of the more recent accounts are P. J. Willetts,Beethoven and England (London, 1970), chapters ix and x, the latter devoted entirely to the Ninth Symphony,and Cyril Ehrlich, First Philharmonic (London, 1995), chapter 2.

6 RPS MS 280, f. 2, meeting of 10 Nov. 1822.7 The score sent, a copy with autograph annotations, is now RPS MS 15.8 Ries, a Rhinelander like Beethoven and Salomon, was elected Associate in December 1813 and a member,

unanimously and immediately, when the number of members was increased from the original fifty in May1815. In January 1815 a new symphony was commissioned from him for 50 guineas ‘as a mark of thesatisfaction which this Society has received from [his] compositions’. RPS MS 275, ff. 1v, 18v and 24v,meetings of 1 Dec. 1813, 28 Jan. and 22 May 1815. The symphony was performed at the concert of 15 May.



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£25 for it, on the same terms as the awaited symphony. Their resolution concluded that ‘MessrsDrummonds be requested to pay for the two on the delivery of the M.S. in Vienna’. A few dayslater they sought Ries’s advice both about ways of making payment in Vienna, and of getting themanuscripts from there to London.9 On 5 February 1823 Beethoven wrote again to Riesinforming him of his intention to entrust the score of the overture to Philipp von Neumann,Minister in the Austrian Embassy in London (where prince Paul Anton Esterhazy was theambassador), who was about to return to England from Vienna. Beethoven also wondered if thisofficial might, in due course, be a means of getting the Symphony to London, and on 23February the ever hopeful Directors decided to write themselves to Neumann asking his help.10

However, Beethoven’s letter of 5 February continues that out of financial necessity he is ‘obligedto wait until the fee for the symphony has been forwarded to Vienna [‘das Honor. angewiesenist’]’, though ‘If I were not so poor as to have to live by my pen, I would not accept anything fromthe P. Soc.’11

By 25 February he was able to tell Ries that the overture had been despatched, adding afurther elaborate, almost gracious plea for money:12

If the Philharmonic desires to keep this too for 18 months [i.e. on the same terms as thosealready set down for the symphony], the overture is at its disposal. Nobody has yetreceived it, and nobody will until I receive an answer from you about it. If thePhilharmonic Society is as poor as I am, then it need not give me anything. But if it isbetter off, as I have good reason to believe and cordially hope and desire that it is, then Ileave it entirely to the Society to treat me, in regard to the overture, exactly as it likes.

The same day he also wrote to Charles Neate (fig. 2) in London on other business, butmentioning that the overture had been dispatched to Ries.13 Beethoven and Neate had met, andbeen on good terms, while Neate had been studying in Vienna in 1815, although rather than takehim as a pupil himself, Beethoven had recommended that he study with Emanuel Aloys Forster.Neate, a composer and considerable pianist, in addition to being another of the Society’s foundermembers was one of the Directors present at the 1822 meeting at which the commission for thesymphony had been agreed. (The other two were Charles Dance and Nicolas Mori, the formerone of the most important founder members and the latter among the initial twenty-fiveassociates of the Society.)

On 22 March Beethoven wrote again to Ries, to assure him that the overture had beendispatched, and ought already to be in London. In this hastily written note he went on to say thatthe symphony was still not finished, implying that this was because the financial position withthe Philharmonic had yet to be finally settled; however, he optimistically estimated the timeneeded to complete it at fourteen days!14 Despite the delay in transit evident from these letters,the overture arrived in time to be given its first performance in Britain at the Philharmonicconcert of 21 April, and the Society’s annual accounts for 1823 record £75 paid to ‘Beethovenfor Copyright’ – £25 for the overture, and the £50 agreed on for the promised symphony15

(fig. 3). If the business of getting the score of the overture to London seems complex, it isnonetheless worth setting out. This is because when the manuscript of the symphony finallyarrived almost no details of its transmission are known. A comparative example will be useful.

9 RPS MS 280, f. 6rv, 25 Jan. and 2 Feb.10 Ibid, f. 8v.11 Sieghard Brandenburg (ed.), Ludwig van Beethoven. Briefwechsel. Gesamtausgabe, vol. v (Munich, 1996), no.

1549. English translation from Emily Anderson (ed.), The Letters of Beethoven, vol. iii (London, 1961), no.1133.

12 Brandenburg, no. 1580; Anderson, no. 114313 Brandenburg, no. 1581; Anderson, no. 1144.14 Brandenburg, no. 1617; Anderson, no. 1159. 15 RPS MS 299, f. 11v.



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Fig. 2. Charles Neate in his mid-seventies, photograph dated1860. RPS MS 410, f. 16.

Fig. 3. Payment to Beethoven for the symphony and the overture op. 124, detailfrom the Society’s accounts for 1823. RPS MS 299, f. 11v.


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Of those in London whom Beethoven knew, he was undoubtedly closest to Ries, whoremained his main contact – on Philharmonic as well as other business – until he returnedto Germany in the summer of 1824. Others with whom Beethoven had connections, inaddition to Neate, included the harp maker Johann Andreas Stumpff, Cipriani Potter (whohad been in Vienna for some months in 1817-18, and who had been a member of the Societysince 1815), and, from 1825, the pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles (later also a memberof the Society). The Philharmonic Society constantly relied on such connections in itsrelations with composers abroad.

On 5 September 1823 Beethoven felt able to write to Ries to say that ‘the copyist finishedwork on the score of the symphony a few days ago’, and that he and Franz ChristianKirchhoffer, one of his circle who was cashier and bookkeeper for a firm of silk merchantsin Vienna and who had assisted before in arranging for items to be sent to London, wereseeking a suitable means to get it to the Society. However, that same day Beethoven alsowrote to Kirchhoffer to say that it might be up to a fortnight before he would receive thesymphony manuscript.16 According to Beethoven’s principal early biographer, AntonSchindler, work on the symphony was not completed to the composer’s satisfaction untilFebruary of 1824.17 Schindler’s testimony can on occasion be unreliable, but in this instanceit is likely that there is some truth in both statements, for though the symphony may wellhave been substantially complete in the autumn of 1823, Beethoven seems to have beenmaking minor revisions and checking the work of the copyists who were preparing a ‘clean’score from his autograph well into the first quarter of 1824.

In January 1824 Ries was asked by the Philharmonic Society to write again to thecomposer urging speedy dispatch of the new work, once more in the hope of being able toinclude it in that season’s concerts.18 But it was not until 27 April 1824, by which time fiveof the eight concerts of the Philharmonic season had already been given, that Beethovensigned a receipt to the Philharmonic for their £50.19 This document (fig. 4) states that thesymphony had been handed over (‘übergeben’) to Kirchhoffer, but even this may not haveimmediately been the case, for, as we shall see, nowhere in the surviving records is there anymention of the copyists’ score being in London until December. On the evidence of theSociety’s accounts, the commissioning fee, or authority to pay it, was already in Vienna in1823. It would have been sent by June or July, when the accounts for the year were signedoff; the inclusion in the total of the commission fee for the symphony as well as payment forthe overture could well have been a response to Beethoven’s letter to Ries of February 1823emphasizing the need for the fee to be forwarded. At all events it is understandable thatBeethoven should have wished to issue a receipt at the earliest possible reasonable date sothat the money could be paid over to him. There was also a more imminent reason toregularize the position with the Philharmonic, for by this time Beethoven, though with theinevitable doubts and delays, was in the midst of preparing to have the work given its firstperformance in Vienna. It was given at the Karntnertor Theater on 7 May 1824, leading toa second performance at the end of the month.20


16 Brandenburg nos 1739, 1740; Anderson no. 1238; A.W. Thayer, Life of Beethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes and IanCurteis (London, 2001), p. 475.

17 Schindler, quoted in G. Kinsky and H. Halm, Das Werk Beethovens (Munich, 1955), p. 372, thought that ithad progressed from sketch to full score by that date.

18 RPS MS 280, f. 17, meeting of 4 Jan. 1824. 19 BL, Add. MS 33965, f. 174.20 Thayer, op. cit., pp. 488-95.



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The manuscript eventually sent to the publisher B. Schott’s Söhne of Mainz, forpublication once the Philharmonic’s initial exclusive right to the work had expired, is ontextual evidence the first of the copyists’ scores to have been prepared, and was presumablyin large measure complete late in 1823 or in the early months of 1824. Evidently this was thescore referred to in Beethoven’s letters to Ries and Kirchhoffer of September 1823. Despiteits being mentioned in several letters to Schotts during 1824, this copy was also delayed, anddid not reach the publisher until January 1825.21 This Schott copy is heavily revised, both inthe composer’s hand and with alterations made by copyists at his direction, and on papersof irregular size.22 The revisions were evidently made at various times in 1824, a number ofthem after the first Vienna performances in May of that year. The Philharmonic scorederives from this ‘first’ copy, but, since it omits significant later additions, must be presumedto have been completed immediately before, or at the time of, those Vienna firstperformances.23 This would put it reasonably close to the date of Beethoven’s receipt for thePhilharmonic Society’s £50. So it would seem, if matters were that clearly thought out, thatthe first score was originally intended for the Philharmonic, in which case it would indeedhave been the manuscript referred to by Beethoven in those letters written in September of1823. When it quickly became untidy and full of alterations it would have no longer havebeen acceptable as a ‘commission’ copy,24 and as soon as that became apparent it would havebeen necessary for a further, cleaner copy to be prepared for dispatch to London,incorporating as many revisions and corrections as had by that time been marked into thefirst copy. This London score is the work of three copyists, with copious minor correctionsand annotations by Beethoven (and in other contemporary hands), and before it was sent toLondon he provided it with a title-page in his own hand identifying it as the ‘GrosseSinfonie geschrieben Für die Philarmonische Gesellschaft in London’ (fig. 5). He alsoidentified each of the movements, ‘Erster Satz’ and so on, to make the ordering of theunbound gatherings clear.25 Its text is essentially that of the Schott score at the time it wasused for the Vienna performances of May 1824, and also to be found in the survivinginstrumental parts used at those performances.26

21 See e.g. Brandenburg, nos 1787, 1897, 1901, 1908, 1913.22 The manuscript was sold at Sotheby’s, London, 22 May 2003 (lot no. 16), and is now part of the collections

of the Juilliard School of Music, New York.23 See Jonathan Del Mar, Critical Commentary (Kassel, 1996) to the Bärenreiter edition of Beethoven,

Symphony no. 9 in D minor, pp. 15, 22-3. I am most grateful to Mr Del Mar for reading my text and for hispatience through many helpful discussions on the dating of the text of the London manuscript.

24 Del Mar, op. cit., p. 16, describes the Schott copy after revision as ‘in quite a mess’25 The score is now RPS MS 5.26 Del Mar, op. cit. p. 15.


Fig. 5. Beethoven’s dedication to the Philharmonic Society, from the first leaf of the manuscript sent toLondon. Beneath it he has written ‘Erster Satz’, as the opening movement begins on the verso of the leaf. RPS MS 5, f. 1r.


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The symphony was performed at the two concerts in Vienna, on 7 and 23 May, and at bothexcerpts from the Missa Solemnis (op. 123) were also given their first performances.Beethoven’s correspondence at the time gives plenty of evidence of his concern for correctingboth score and parts. At this time two scores are referred to in the correspondence, presumablythe autograph and the first copy. Contemporary accounts describe Beethoven at those Viennaperformances standing to one side of the conductor, Umlauf, with his ‘own’ score, whichsuggests that he had the autograph and that Umlauf was directing proceedings from the ‘first’copy, to whatever extent it was by that time revised.27

The lapse of some eight months between the apparent despatch of the score, as implied inthe wording of the receipt signed by Beethoven in April 1824, and the first evidence of its arrivalin London seems likely to be a lasting puzzle.28 The possibility that the wording of the receiptwas to a degree a fiction, designed solely to enable the money finally to be handed over toBeethoven, cannot be entirely ruled out. It is also possible that, although the score was indeedformally handed over on 27 April when the receipt was signed, the composer wished to checkit once again, either before or after the Vienna concerts, before it was actually sent off. BothBeethoven’s negotiations with Kirchhoffer and the care taken in 1823 over the transmission ofthe much smaller score of the overture ‘Die Weihe des Hauses’ demonstrate that a trustedpersonal courier would have been sought, rather than using any regular commercial service,resulting in at least a little more delay than was usual in traffic between the two cities. But noneof these considerations is sufficient to account for the extent of the lapse of time between thecopying of the score and its evident arrival in London. At this time, as a matter of routine, ascore from a composer abroad would have been sent not directly to the Philharmonic’sSecretary, but to a member (or on occasion a non-member well known to the Society) with linksto the sender. We do not know to whom in London the score of the Ninth was addressed. Inthe absence of Ries, now settled back in the Rhineland, Neate seems a likely candidate, but thereis only one passing reference to its arrival, and none to its despatch or to the means by which itwas conveyed, in the surviving letters between him and the composer. Nothing, in other words,survives comparable with the exchange of letters with Ries concerning the dispatch of the lessimportant and less bulky manuscript of the overture op. 124. Could there have beencorrespondence on the subject of the symphony that is now no longer extant or available? In theabsence of any such material the Philharmonic archive furnishes the only evidence, apart fromthat single reference in Neate’s letter, for the score’s arrival in London.

The Philharmonic Directors for 1824-25 were elected as usual at a general meeting followingthe end of the 1824 season of concerts; they included Neate and Potter, but not Smart.29 Also asusual, the Directors did not meet formally after that until November; their first two meetings (22November and 5 December) were concerned with the regular business of arranging the concertdates for the coming season, securing the use of the concert room, circularizing existingsubscribers and advertising for new.30 Their first business at the next meeting, of 12 December,was to make arrangements for the engagement of the members of the orchestra, again regular, ifsometimes contentious annual business at this stage in their proceedings. Only when that was intrain did the Directors turn to the subject of the possible repertory for the forthcoming season.They provisionally arranged to hold the usual pre-season trial of new pieces on 17 January 1825.(Trial evenings, before an audience mainly restricted to members, were normally held each yearduring January, well before the beginning of the concert season. Their principal purpose was toplay over new or unfamiliar works as an aid to building the programmes for the concerts

27 Quoted in T. F. Kelly, First Nights (Newhaven, CT, 2000), p. 175. Kelly provides a detailed account of theVienna performances.

28 For example Sieghard Brandenburg, op. cit. p. 400 (n. 4 to no. 1914), goes so far as to suggest that the scorethat arrived at the end of the year may have been a different one from that handed over in the Spring.

29 RPS MS 275, f. 125v, meeting of 30 June 1824.30 RPS MS 280, ff. 23v-24v.



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themselves.) At this meeting of 12 December 1824 the Secretary was commissioned to procurecopies of Spohr’s overture to Jessonda and of Weber’s Euryanthe and Preciosa overtures.31 Theclear implication is that these were some of the works proposed for the trial, and indeed, in duecourse both Weber works were played during the season. Still at this stage no mention is madeof the Beethoven symphony.

There is nothing in this to suggest that anything out of the ordinary was in the offing: ifBeethoven’s score had already arrived in London, the Philharmonic Directors – all well-connected participants in the capital’s, and the country’s, musical life – were evidently notaware of it. From the minutes of their meetings it seems that they only became aware of thepresence of the manuscript score in London at some time between this meeting of 12December 1824 and their next formal gathering on the 19th. All the evidence for theiractivities, both before and after, points to its having arrived during those few days. Neate wroteto Beethoven on 20 December and at the end of his letter confirmed its arrival and reportedthat it would be swiftly tried out.32 This letter was written following the meeting of theDirectors held the evening before; though not explicitly mentioned in the minutes, the arrivalof the score must have been reported at that meeting. Only four Directors were present,including Neate and Potter, nevertheless they passed a resolution that Beethoven should be

. . . invited to this Country for the ensuing Concerts, offering him the sum of threehundred Guineas under the stipulation that he shall write a Symphony and aConcertante for the use of the Society exclusively during his residence in England,and that he shall preside at the performance of his own works.33

The invitation was the main subject of Neate’s letter of 20 December (known only from atranslation into German by Beethoven’s nephew in which the word ‘Concert’ is used ratherthan ‘Concertante’), and the arrival of the score is mentioned almost casually; so it is hard tobelieve that its dispatch had not been announced beforehand, as with the overture in 1823,lending credence to the supposition of lost correspondence. Following an extremely successfulvisit to the Philharmonic by Cherubini in 1815 (he had provided three new works, includinghis only symphony) the Society had already tried, without success, to lure Beethoven toLondon in 1817 with a similar offer to that now repeated at the end of 1824.34 This secondinvitation seems to have been motivated by a mixture of enthusiasm and opportunism. Giventhe length of time it had taken to get this one symphony, and, of course, Beethoven’s deafnessand other growing physical difficulties, of which some members at least must have been aware,it seems almost fanciful. But Beethoven himself appears to have taken the prospect seriously,and replied swiftly asking for an additional 100 guineas to cover his travelling costs – hethought it would be necessary to buy a carriage and to have someone to travel with him.35 TheSociety declined to increase its offer, but even in mid-March Beethoven, admitting he couldnot come in Spring, expressed the hope that some accident might yet bring him to London inthe Autumn.36

Reading from December 1824 onwards through the surviving documents in the Society’sarchive, the sense of excitement, the sharp intake of breath when they realized what they hadbeen sent, is even now almost palpable. As has been shown above, on 12 December,apparently just before the arrival of the score (or at least, since we do not know to whichprecise individual it was sent, before any of the Directors present had seen it), a trial hadbeen arranged for 17 January 1825. If the new symphony were to be included then, it would

31 RPS MS 280, f. 25.32 Brandenburg, no. 1914.33 RPS MS 280, f. 25.34 Willetts, op. cit., p. 44.35 Brandenburg, op. cit., vol. vi (Munich 1996), no. 1924; Anderson, no. 1344. The letter is dated 15 Jan. 1825.36 Brandenburg, nos 1930, 1947; Anderson, no. 1352.



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be necessary for preparations to begin immediately once the score was in the Directors’hands: orchestral, chorus and soloists’ parts had all to be got ready from that single source.The Society’s regular copyist at the time was the organist and composer Joseph John Harris(1799-1869), who ended his duties only in 1827, when he moved to Manchester.37 On 24December 1824, clearly shortly after receiving the score, he wrote (fig. 6) to William Watts,Secretary of the Society38

I am almost afraid to promise Beethoven’s Sinfonia by the 17th but if the Directorswish it by that time I will do my best endeavours to have it ready. It is the longest &most difficult thing I ever copied, the Trumpet parts are as long as the Violin parts ofany moderate Sinfonia [,] yet the most beautiful Composition.

It comes as no great surprise, therefore, that at the meeting of 2 January 1825 the date for tryingout the symphony was re-arranged to 1 February, ‘provided that it can be finished Copying’.39

The payment in the accounts for 1825 to ‘Harris, Copyist include[in]g £5 Gratuity’ was £65 3s.By comparison, after the first three seasons of 1813-15 when the foundations of the library ofparts were being laid, annual copying costs of more than £50 were rare.40 Since it was clear bythis time that the symphony alone would require most if not all of a complete trial evening, thetrial of 17 January went ahead but was devoted to other works. In addition to the overtures byWeber and Spohr already mentioned, these probably also included Spontini’s Olimpia overture,copies of which were ordered at this time, and which also received its local premiere at theensuing concerts.41

But it is clear that at this meeting the new symphony was on all minds. It was decided thatSmart should conduct the trial of the ‘Choral’ and ‘superintend the vocal department’, and thatthe band should be led by François Cramer. Apart from a performance of the ‘finale’ of DonGiovanni in 1823 this was the first time that a work performed at a Philharmonic Society concerthad required a separate chorus. The choice of Smart may have been influenced by his experienceas a choral director, particularly his great success in introducing in his Lenten oratorio seasonsBeethoven’s only oratorio Christus am Oelberge (op. 85). He had conducted the work’s firstLondon performances, as The Mount of Olives, at Drury Lane Theatre in 1814.42 Subsequentlyhe corresponded with the composer and was on sufficiently good terms to smooth things over in1816-17 when Neate was equivocating over earlier works offered by Beethoven to London.43

Whatever those early difficulties, the clear implication of the tantalizingly brief minute bookentries relating to the Philharmonic trials and first concert performance of the Ninth Symphonyis that Smart and Neate together were the work’s principal champions within the Society.

When the question arose of the language in which the last movement was to be sung, it wouldappear that Charles Clementi was asked (or perhaps offered) to provide an English version. Buthis translation presented problems, and at the meeting of 23 January it was resolved thatClementi ‘be informed that the difficulty of singing the English words has induced the Directorsto have it performed in Italian’, and Neate was requested to consult with a Mr Pagliardini aboutmaking a translation.44 Pagliardini had completed his task by 26 January, when Charles Clementiwas awarded the consolation prize of a ticket to both the trial and the first performance.45

37 James D. Brown and Stephen S. Stratton, British Musical Biography (Birmingham, 1897), pp. 184-5. WilliamGoodwin, Harris’s successor at the Philharmonic was appointed 16 Dec. 1827, RPS MS 280, f. 56v.

38 RPS MS 347, f. 108.39 RPS MS 280, f. 26r.40 RPS MS 299, f. 13v.41 RPS MS 280, f. 26; Olimpia ended the first half of the fourth concert, 11 April.42 Willetts, op. cit., p. 39.43 Ibid, pp. 39-42. 44 RPS MS 280, f. 28r and v.45 Ibid., f. 29v.




Fig. 6. The copyist Joseph John Harris’s letter after receiving the score in order to prepare instrumentaland vocal parts for performance, 24 December 1824. RPS MS 347, f. 108.


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(Charles was the son of the composer Muzio Clementi, yet another of the Philharmonic’sfounder members, though not one who was always on good terms with the Society.) It musthave been the translation by Pagliardini which was used at the concert as well as at the trial –his fee of 6 guineas is entered in the accounts46 – and which is printed on the back of the concertprogramme card. But it is possible that it may have been at least revised, since rather differentItalian words have been intermittently added in pencil above the vocal lines in the score. YoungClementi’s translation may similarly have survived in part in the Philharmonic score, since atvarious points English words are also pencilled above the vocal line. They include the quatrain

Friendship was by nature givenFriendship wine and woman’s kissCherubs know the joys of heavenEven reptiles have their bliss

which perhaps goes some way to explaining why this version was not used. Although thesepencil insertions are not in Charles Clementi’s hand, the English text interlined there iscertainly not that of the translation by John Oxenford which was used for the Society’s laterperformances from 1837 (figs 7, 8).

Meanwhile Beethoven remained concerned about the accuracy of the copies he had sentboth to the publisher and to London. On 26 January he sent Schotts details of correctionstogether with some completely rewritten pages for insertion in their copy, and the followingday he wrote (in French) to Neate with two pages of readings which he wished to be surehad been marked into the London score: ‘I prefer in this way to persuade myself that yourscore is correct’.47 These have all been entered into the Philharmonic manuscript, at leastone apparently by Beethoven himself before its dispatch. At all events, Neate was able towrite on the day of the trial not only to express his regret that the Philharmonic could notincrease its financial offer for Beethoven’s proposed visit, but also to set the composer’smind at rest by reporting that ‘Die Sinfonie ist fehlerfrei, und soll heute Abend wiederholt’[the symphony is free of faults and will be played over this evening].48

Two of the soloists at the trial – the contralto Miss Goodall and the tenor Thomas Vaughan –were also those who were to take part in the concert: Vaughan, indeed, was clearly Smart’spreferred choice, and only the day before the trial he was the subject of a long letter from Smartto the Philharmonic Secretary, William Watts justifying his participation rather than any othersinger.49 Beyond that, the Society’s archive provides little further information as to the conductof the trial performance. At that meeting of 23 January William Hawes (another of the initialtwenty-five Associates of the Society) was given free admission to the concerts for the season,and the accounts for the year record a payment to him of £31. 4s. ‘for Chorus Singers’; given thisamount there can be little doubt that he provided the choir for both trial and performance.50 (Noother work at the concerts that season required a chorus.) Hawes combined a career at St Paul’sCathedral and the Chapel Royal with the post of Music Director at the English Opera at theLyceum Theatre (where his version of Weber’s Der Freischütz had been staged in 1824), so hecould have been responsible for providing boy singers or an operatic chorus: it is quite likely thathis chorus consisted of a combination of both, for both were used in later Philharmonicperformances, and, indeed, had been used at the Vienna first performances.51 Soon after the

46 RPS MS 299, f. 13v.47 Brandenburg, vol. vi, nos. 1927, 1928; Anderson, nos. 1346, 1348.48 Brandenburg, no. 1930.49 RPS MSS 280, f. 26r, and 364, f. 11.50 For Hawes see ODNB.51 E.g. in 1838, when Hawes provided eight of twelve boy singers, RPS MS 299, f.27r; Kelly, op. cit. p. 134. See also

fig. 14 below for the use of both for the performance in Neate’s 1830 benefit concert.




Fig. 7, 8. Vocal lines from the last movement in the London score, showing inserted English and Italiantranslations of the text. RPS MS 5, ff. 113r, 132r.


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symphony had been tried out a further trial evening was arranged for 14 February; in theaccounts for the season the majority of the players are listed as attending an unprecedentedeleven rehearsals in addition to the usual eight concerts, a number accounted for by one rehearsalper concert and the three trial evenings.52

The year before The Harmonicon, the leading English music journal of the day, printed anecstatic report, dated 7 May 1824, of the Vienna first performance, characterizing the lastmovement setting of Schiller’s ode as ‘in perfect keeping . . . with the whole of thiswonderful composition . . . Critics have remarked of the finale, that it requires to be heardfrequently in order to be duly appreciated’.53 Subsequently the journal noted the arrival ofthe score in its January 1825 issue (reinforcing the evidence for the Philharmonic havingreceived it only at the end of 1824) – ‘composed for, and now in the possession of, thePhilharmonic Society’ – and prefaced its account of the first concert of the Philharmonicseason (on 21 February) in the March issue by reporting that the Society had held three‘private meetings’ during January and February.54 Among the works mentioned as tried outare a symphony by Cipriani Potter (not performed until the following season), an overtureby Goss (not given until 1827), and Weber’s overtures to Euryanthe and Preciosa (the formerplayed at the first concert, the latter concluding the second). But The Harmonicon gives mostattention to Beethoven’s symphony, which had excited ‘much curiosity’, mixing dutifuladmiration with doubts on account of the length of the work: on the evidence of the trialrehearsal the writer feared it might last as long as an hour and twenty minutes inperformance. By contrast a brief comment on the trial in The Times55 thought the symphonyone ‘to equal the greatest works of this composer’, and praised the Philharmonic orchestraas being

. . in a state of great perfection, both in point of number and professional talent, andit could not have been put to a severer trial than in the execution, at first sight of thisnoble composition.

There seems to be no firm evidence as to whether the Symphony, or part of it, was playedover at the second February trial as well as on the designated evening of 1 February. Itclearly needed lengthy rehearsal: when Ries directed the symphony, with a massive choir, atthe Lower Rhine Festival at Whitsun 1825 he reported to the composer that he had giventhree hours’ rehearsal to the last movement alone.56 The complete 1825 season was amongthe Philharmonic’s most ambitious, even without the premiere of the Ninth: the otherBritish first performances included overtures by Spontini and Onslow as well as Weber’sEuryanthe overture, one of Weber’s piano concertos (with Neate as soloist), and Beethoven’sfourth piano concerto played by Cipriani Potter. The new Beethoven symphony took itsplace in a season that also featured performances of his Symphonies nos 2-7.

The first British public performance of the Ninth Symphony occupied the second half ofthe third concert, on 21 March. It was presumably the fixing of this date, as well as theincreasingly forlorn hope that the composer might yet travel to London, which promptedSmart to express doubts in a letter to Secretary Watts dated 12 March:57

52 RPS MS 299, f. 13v.53 Harmonicon, 1824, pp. 180-1; report dated 7 May 1824 and quoted in full in Kelly, op. cit., pp. 178-9.54 Harmonicon, 1825, pp. 9, 47-8.55 The Times, 3 February 1825, quoted in Nicholas Cook, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (Cambridge, 2003), p. 40;

Ehrlich, op. cit., p. 35.56 Brandenburg, op. cit., vol. vi, no. 1987. The performance was on 23 May.57 RPS MS 364, f. 12.



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In reply to the letter I received from you on Thursday last, have the goodness tocommunicate to the Directors . . . that in my humble opinion it will be better topostpone the performance of Beethoven’s new Sinfonia ‘till his definitive answershould be received, for should he decide upon coming during the Season will it bejudicious to perform it without him[?] [T]he Directors may say it can be performeda second time if Beethoven comes, but this may place me in an awkward situation, forI have not the vanity to imagine I can fully enter into the ideas of the Composer and,I candidly own that I do not understand his meaning as to the style of the Recitativefor the Basses, perhaps it should be played faster . . . besides I conceive the delaywould be but a just Compliment to Beethoven who has taken such pains in evincinghis desire for the well going of this Sinfonia.

He concludes by saying that, in consequence he has not yet made arrangements with Hawesfor the chorus.

But Beethoven of course did not come and the performance went ahead, under Smart’sdirection, announced in the evening’s programme card as a ‘New Grand CharacteristicSinfonia, M.S., with Vocal Finale’, and annotated by Smart in his own copy withcharacteristic precision as lasting for an hour and four minutes (fig. 9). The soloists wereMaria Caradori, Miss Goodall, Thomas Vaughan and Henry Phillips, and it was sung inPagliardini’s Italian: ‘La gioia risuoni fra tutti noi . . . Dolce Letizia del ciel custode’.58 Itwould appear that Smart solved his problem over the instrumental recitative in the lastmovement by allocating it to a single double bass: ‘Solo’ at this point is among his heavybrown crayon markings in the score (fig. 10).59 Evidently Domenico Dragonetti, ‘the greatestcontrabassist known to history’, also considered these passages as solos. He had beenresident in London since the 1790s and was the regular leader of this section in thePhilharmonic band, considered by many, not least himself, to be the orchestra’s principalplayer. As part of his all too familiar pre-season negotiations over fees, he wrote on 21January to Secretary Watts accepting ten guineas a night and confirming that he would play

all the Solos in Beethoven’s new Symphony . . . I saw the score of Beethoven lastSunday, and had I seen it before I sent in my terms I would have asked double.60

So, while arrangements for the trial of the symphony were being made ‘Drago’, at best aprickly character but aware of his popularity with audiences, was using the work as abargaining counter. Two days later the Directors, who had only reluctantly agreed to the 10guinea fee on 19 January, called his bluff, wrote to him to say that they could ‘not possiblytreat with him’, and engaged Pasquale Anfossi as principal double bass. Anfossi’s, and notDragonetti’s, is the name entered into the accounts for the year, and it was to him that thoseworrying solos fell.61 There is some irony in this, for Beethoven thought highly ofDragonetti, and the two had played together when the latter was in Vienna in 1808.62 Asalways, the names of all the orchestral players are entered into the accounts; it was thestandard Philharmonic band of the period, comprising twenty-six violins (at this period the

58 Smart’s set of Philharmonic Society concert programmes is BL, K.6.d.3.59 RPS MS 5, ff. 91v, 93.60 RPS MS 342, f. 181.61 RPS MSS 280, ff. 27v, 28r and 299, loc. cit.; Fiona M. Palmer, Dragonetti in England (1794-1846). The Career of a

Double Bass Virtuoso (Oxford, 1997), pp. 179-84. Palmer was the first to make this important correction, all earlieraccounts giving Dragonetti as the player concerned.

62 Thayer, op. cit., p. 89; Palmer, loc. cit.




Fig. 9. The front of the programme card for the first London performance. Smart’s copy, annotated by himwith timing. K.6.d.3.


Fig. 10. Smart’s conducting markings in the last movement in the London score. RPS MS 5, ff. 91v, 92r.


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distinction between firsts and seconds does not appear in the accounts), eight each of violasand cellos, five double basses, and the full complement of wind, including the threetrombones (fig. 11).

The substantial account of the premiere in The Harmonicon again harped on the lengthand, as the writer saw it, the diffuseness of the work, just as after the trial.63 The journalcorrectly reported the timing of the performance at sixty-five minutes, rather than theeighty estimated at the earlier occasion, nonetheless ‘a fearful period indeed which puts themuscles and lungs of the band, and the patience of the audience to a severe trial’. But thereare already other signs also that the journal was retreating from the unqualified praiselavished on the work in its report from Vienna in 1824. Now, though the critic saw in thework ‘no diminution of Beethoven’s creative talent’, with ‘many perfectly new traits’ and a‘technical formation [showing] amazing ingenuity and unabated vigour of mind’, and inparticular singled out the second movement, identified as a minuet[!] (with an innovatorytrio in duple time). However, though taking pleasure in ‘a very noble march, which isintroduced’, the Harmonicon critic found the last movement

heterogeneous, and though there is much of vocal beauty in parts of it, yet it does not,and no habit will ever make it, mix up with the first three movements. What relationit bears to the Symphony we could not make out; and here, as well as in other parts,the want of intelligible design is too apparent.

The review concludes with the hope that the work ‘will be put into a produceable form; thatthe repetitions may be omitted, and the chorus removed altogether’; after whichBeethoven’s reputation will ‘if possible, be further augmented’.

A second influential journal, the Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, gave an evenmore severely critical assessment of the work. Its main account64 was written by someonewho had access to the last (referred to as the third) of the trial performances. A detaileddescription of the work itself, including the tempo directions for each movement, gives theimpression that the writer was among those to have had sight of the score. Again, theprincipal criticism is reserved for the fourth movement:

[the] last movement, upon which the violent admirers of Beethoven seem to place alltheir ill-judged vehemence of approbation, is one of the most extraordinary instancesI have ever witnessed, of great powers of mind and wonderful science, wasted uponsubjects infinitely beneath its strength.

The writer concludes

I must ever consider this new symphony as the least excellent of any Beethoven hasproduced; as an unequal work, abounding more in noise, eccentricity, and confusionof design, than in those grand and lofty touches he so well knows how to make us feel– such as those in the symphony in C minor . . .

and puts forward the composer’s by now well-known deafness as a partial explanation.The same journal devoted less space to the public first performance, but was at pains to

stress the mounting expense to the Society of the purchase of the work, the engagement ofa chorus, and ‘the necessity of repeated rehearsals’, estimating the total at 250 guineas, andto contrast this with ‘the exaggeration of several of the parts of the work’, and ‘the disjointednature of the whole composition’.65 William Horsley, a distinguished founder member of the

63 Harmonicon, 1825, p. 69.64 Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review,. xxv (1825), pp. 80-4. 65 Ibid., p. 202.



Fig. 11. The Philharmonic orchestra for 1825, from the Society’s account book. The columns headed R and Crefer to rehearsals and concerts attended. RPS MS 299, f. 13v.


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Society, was a major contributor to the Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review and he wasalmost certainly the writer both of this insider’s view of the trial and of the reportemphasizing the cost of the performance.66

And indeed, neither the original commission nor the invitation for Beethoven to cometo London had universal support within the membership of the Society, in part no doubtbecause of the small number of Directors present at the two crucial meetings. WilliamHorsley himself was evidently among the leaders of the opposition, so his hostile notices ofthe work may have represented more than the reaction of a disinterested listener. On 13 June1825 he wrote to Watts67 noting that

… the extraordinary expense to which [the Directors] have put the PhilharmonicSociety by the partial purchase of Beethoven’s last Symphony, and their offer to himof 300 guineas, in case he would visit the Country, have excited a very great sensationamong the Members…

He believed that ‘in these matters the Directors have exceeded their powers’ and that thematter should be raised at the forthcoming summer General Meeting. At that meeting,which took place at the end of the month, Smart took the chair, and although Horsley waspresent, the subject is not mentioned in the minutes. But that was not the end of the matter;with some difficulty Horsley persevered. In the autumn he gave notice of his intention topropose ‘a new law’, then at the summer 1826 meeting his motion was postponed becauseof lack of time, but finally, in November of 1826, the general meeting was asked to approvethe motion

that the Directors enter into no covenant for the purchase of ManuscriptCompositions nor engage any person to come to this Country as a Composer orConductor without the consent of a General Meeting…

After Smart had requested the removal of the word ‘conductor’, the motion was ‘put andnegatived’.68 Thereafter the Directors continued to invite outstanding composers fromabroad. Following in Cherubini’s footsteps Spohr had come in 1820, as would Mendelssohnin 1829, both making frequent subsequent visits.

The last concert of the 1825 Philharmonic season took place on 6 June. On 30 July Smartset out for Germany, in the company of the actor-manager Charles Kemble. Kemble’s aimwas to see Weber and settle with him the commissioning of Oberon for Covent Garden. Afterprogressing through the Low Countries, they called on Ferdinand Ries at Godesberg nearBonn, and Smart arranged for the purchase of music from the Bonn publisher Simrock, thefirst of many visits to publishers and music shops across Germany and in Vienna during histrip. He had been empowered by the Philharmonic Directors before leaving London ‘topurchase any MS or printed music which during his tour on the Continent he may hear &approve’, evidently one of many such commissions he received.69 From Bonn they drovedown the Rhine valley to Coblenz, and from there one morning they walked through the

66 Leanne Langley, ‘The English Musical Journal in the Early Nineteenth Century’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Universityof North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1983), pp. 194-281, especially pp. 254-61. Dr Langley has since identified themarked-up copy of the QMMR held by the Sibley Music Library, Rochester, NY, as Horsley’s own copy, furtherstrengthening his link with the journal.

67 RPS MS 349, ff. 23-4.68 RPS MS 275, ff. 131-2.69 RPS MS 280, f. 35v; H. Bertram and C. L. E. Cox, Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart (London, 1907),

p. 69; Add. MS 41772, f. 54v.



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rain – ‘it took us about three hours and a half ’ – to Bad Ems, on the Lahn, where Weber wasstaying.70 Kemble successfully completed his business, and set off to return to England,leaving his companion to head further south-east. As Smart wrote ‘My principal reason forthis journey was to ascertain from Beethoven personally the exact times of the movementsof his characteristic [i.e. the ‘Choral’] – and some of his other – Sinfonias.’71

Smart arrived in Vienna late in the day on 4 September. He quickly set about meeting themusical community, and indeed was at Steiner & Co.’s music shop the next day.72 Amongthose from whom he received most help were the piano maker Franz Joseph Ries (who hasbeen identified as the younger brother of Ferdinand Ries),73 and Kirchhoffer, ‘who . . . hadthe arrangement of procuring the Choral Symphony of Beethoven for our PhilharmonicSocitey’.74 Beethoven and his latest symphony were foremost in Smart’s mind, and alreadyon 7 September, when he presented to various residents letters of introduction he hadbrought with him from London, he was given a report of the Vienna first performance bythe violinist and composer Joseph Mayseder. He was told that the whole bass section hadplayed the last movement recitative, ‘but they had the story that it was written forDragonetti only’.75

Smart met Beethoven on three occasions. Two of these meetings took place in the city,when the composer, who was as usual spending the summer at Baden outside Vienna, camein to town for performances of his new string quartet, op. 132, at the hotel where the Parismusic publisher Maurice Schlesinger was staying. Schlesinger had purchased the work (andwent on to publish it in 1827). On the first occasion the quartet was played over twice underBeethoven’s close supervision. On the second Smart was asked to stay on for dinner afterthe music was over; after dinner Beethoven played the piano extempore for ‘about twentyminutes’.76 The third meeting, longer and more intimate, took place when Smart visited thecomposer, by invitation, at Baden about a week later.

Smart’s diary notes and the surviving Beethoven conversation books give some idea of thetalk at all three meetings. In the conversation books those around Beethoven wrote downquestions or observations since he was unable to hear them; Smart noted of their secondmeeting that Beethoven ‘was in the highest of spirits. We all wrote to him by turns, but hecan hear a little if you halloo quite close to his left ear.’77 In the course of their encountersSmart gave Beethoven letters of introduction from Stumpff in London and from FerdinandRies. He presented to the composer copies of the advertising ‘bill’ and libretto ‘book’ for oneof his oratorio performances at Drury Lane – Beethoven was somewhat startled to see thatSmart, as he did more than once, had combined in a single programme the oratorio TheMount of Olives with the Battle Symphony (op. 91), works wildly different in spirit – as wellas of the programme card for the Philharmonic first performance of the Ninth Symphony.The symphony was evidently one of the main subjects discussed: Smart asked both howlong it had taken to compose and the timing of the Vienna performances – he was astonishedto be told that these lasted only three quarters of an hour (and inclined to doubt this). TheDragonetti question was raised. Smart explained why another bassist had played in London,and asked if Beethoven had had Dragonetti in mind; regrettably the composer’s spoken

70 Cox and Cox, op. cit., p. 70. 71 Ibid., p. 64.72 Add. MS 41774, f. 22.73 Karl-Heinz Köhler, Grita Herre, Günter Brosche (eds.), Beethovens Konversationshefte , vol. viii (Leipzig, 1981),

p. 373. 74 Cox and Cox, p. 111.75 Add. MS 41774, f. 24.76 Cox and Cox, p. 115.77 Loc. cit.



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reply is not recorded. Smart had also to explain that German was not normally sung inEngland, so that Italian had been used at the performance. He himself seems mostly to haveused French in these exchanges. Other subjects included the music of Handel, and the sumsthat Beethoven could have hoped to earn in England had he taken up the Philharmonic’sinvitation at the beginning of the year. But possibly the most important feature of the visitto Baden was when, in Smart’s words

Beethoven gave me the time, by playing the subjects on the pianoforte, of manymovements of his symphonies, including the Choral symphony . . .

Of less importance perhaps was Beethoven’s attempt to test the Englishman’s drinkingcapacity; Smart again: ‘He had the worst of the trial.’78

Altogether Smart was in Vienna for sixteen days. He returned by way of Prague, Dresden(where he met Weber again, and established a firm friendship), Leipzig, Berlin (where hemet the young Mendelssohn), Hanover, Cassel and Cologne. By early December he wasback in London. The Philharmonic Directors for the 1826 season, Smart among them, hadbeen elected at the 1825 Annual General Meeting on 29 June, shortly before he had set outon his travels.79 The great excitement of the 1826 season in London was the arrival ofWeber. He stayed at Smart’s house, where he completed work on the opera. And, already illwhen he arrived in London, it was there that he would die on the night of 4-5 June. Oberonhad its first performance on 12 April; nonetheless Weber managed to conduct thePhilharmonic concert of 3 April, with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony as well as his ownovertures to Euryanthe and Der Freischütz included in the programme. Three days later at aPhilharmonic general meeting, the relevant membership law was briefly suspended, and itwas proposed and seconded ‘by the Whole Society that Mr Carl Maria von Weber be electedan Honorary member of this Society’, the first time that such a thing had been done.80 Atthe concert of 1 May Smart gave the first Philharmonic performance of the overture toOberon; the second part of his programme opened with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, givinghim at last his first opportunity to bring to the Society’s concerts some of the fruits of whathe had learnt from Beethoven himself. He also conducted the last concert of the season on12 June – no Beethoven symphony this time, but the sad duty of opening the programmewith the ‘Dead March’ in Handel’s Saul following Weber’s death.

News of what was to prove Beethoven’s final illness was reported to a meeting of theSociety on 28 February 1827, and Stumpff and Moscheles were deputed to organize thetransfer of the money being sent for his relief.81 His letter of thanks was sent to Moschelesand enclosed a list of metronome marks for the symphony, and these are entered into thePhilharmonic manuscript.82 By the time that news of Beethoven’s death late in March 1827would have arrived in London the Philharmonic season was half over.83 Smart conductedonly the last concert, opening with the Eighth Symphony of Beethoven, and closing withthe overture to Fidelio.

78 Cox and Cox, pp. 108-124 passim, and Add. MSS 41774, ff. 24-5, 28-9 and 41771, f. 50; Konversationshefte, pp.127-52 passim.

79 RPS MS 275, f. 128v.80 Ibid., f. 130, meeting of 6 April 1826.81 RPS MS 275, f. 133.82 Brandenburg, no. 2284; RPS MS 407 is a photographic facsimile of this letter.83 The fourth of the eight concerts took place on 2 April. Where not taken from copies of the original programmes,

all details of concert programmes are drawn from M. B. Foster, History of the Philharmonic Society of London:1813-1912 (London, 1912).



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But some indication that a more extensive tribute to the late master was being considered,employing Smart’s special knowledge, came at the end of 1827 when the Directors (who for1827-28 did not include Smart, but did include Neate), were planning the trial nights forearly 1828. Towards the end of each year particularly, composers who aspired to have theirwork performed by the Philharmonic would submit scores to be considered for inclusion inone of the pre-season trials. At a meeting in mid-December the Directors reported thereceipt of a score of an overture by ‘Hill’ (most likely the double-bass – and cello – playerHenry Hill, a founder member). This prompted them to set a date: later in the same meetingit was resolved to stage a trial on 4 February 1828 ‘to rehearse Beethoven’s last Symphony,Mr Hill’s Overture &c.’84 It was of course quite impractical to mount on a single eveningeven a simple run through of the Ninth, unrehearsed, with very much else at all. Perhapsfor this reason, and possibly on account of some dislike of the symphony itself, the next timethe Directors met, at the end of December, the question of a trial of Beethoven’s NinthSymphony was referred to a general meeting – a sign that opinions were sharply divided.85

At the general meeting of 14 January 1828, a trial performance of the ‘Choral’ was agreedon for 31 January, on a motion proposed by Neate – and carried only by ten votes to seven.86

The date may have been brought forward to allow time for a second trial, for a growingnumber of other works was under consideration, including one of Weber’s symphoniesbeing put forward by Thomas Attwood.

The Directors quickly set about making detailed arrangements for the Ninth. Spagnolettiwas to be asked to lead and Smart to conduct; soloists – the Cawse sisters (who sang atDrury Lane Theatre), Frederick William Horncastle and Edward Taylor – were decided on,and Sir Henry Bishop was deputed to write to Drury Lane about a chorus. Their meetingwas on 20 January; it also provided for a further trial, for other works, on 11 February(though in the event the second trial took place only on 3 March).87 Despite the shortnotice, Smart seems to have leaped at the chance. He wrote to Secretary Watts on 22 Januarydeclaring himself

happy to comply with the request of the Directors . . . to conduct Beethoven’sSymph[ony] at the Trial Night on the 31st.: I presume the whole Ev[enin]g, or nearlyso, will be devoted to that Piece . . .88

Of the soloists he was able to assure Watts that the Directors could be certain that the MissesCawse would be available if they were not needed in the theatre that evening,

but upon the condition that if the Sym[phon]y is performed at one of thePhil[harmonic] Concerts, they are to sing in it and the engagement is not to beconfined to the Trial Night, as they are more advanced in the Profession than theywere upon a former occasion when they gave their gratuitous aid.

84 RPS MS 280, f. 56v. For Hill, who died in 1841, see Birket Foster, op. cit., pp. 6,9, and Betty Matthews, The RoyalSociety of Musicians of Great Britain. List of Members 1738-1984 (London, 1985), p. 72. The younger Henry Hillalso played in the Society’s orchestra. The alacrity with which the Directors accepted this work suggests the authorwas well known to them; the piece is therefore unlikely to have been by John Hill (1797-1877), although betterknown as a composer. The overture failed to make it to inclusion in any Philharmonic concert.

85 RPS MS 280, f. 57. 86 RPS MS 275, f. 137v.87 RPS MS 280, ff. 87v-88, 90.88 RPS MS 364, f. 18.



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For the tenor and bass he wanted Vaughan and Phillips, the soloists at his first Britishperformance three years earlier, but if Vaughan should not be available he thoughtHorncastle the next best, ‘as the efficacy, not the rank of the Singer may be the mostdesireable’. But Smart’s final remarks show most clearly his own intimate concern:

Will you have the goodness to be sent to me the Score (and parts for the MissesCawse) as soon as possible, for I have had a long conversation with Beethoven relativeto this Sym[phon]y and I should like the effects to be produced as he pointed out asfar as I have the power.

At the meeting of 27 January final arrangements were made for the chorus, and it was agreedthat Smart should be allowed six guest tickets for the trial.89 In addition Hill was granted ‘anadmission for 2 friends for the Trial Night’, perhaps because his overture was also to be tried,and that, as Smart feared, not all of the evening was to be devoted to the ‘Choral’. Bishop hadevidently set about arranging the chorus immediately, urging Watts in a letter of 22 January toget parts to them as soon as possible, and finally agreeing terms by the 29th.90 Harris, thechorus master, was to get three guineas, and undertook to engage as many singers as possiblefor 7s. each – to which Bishop added ‘I have no doubt they will all come for that.’

The author of the Society’s centennial history, Myles Birket Foster, states that, since theperformance would have taken up all of the trial evening, it did not take place.91 Whilst it istrue that Foster may perhaps have had access to correspondence that is no longer extant, thematerial from the Directors’ minutes makes it clear that in fact this trial went ahead as planned– at their meeting of 3 February an enquiry was even launched into the absence on the eveningof one of the orchestral violinists who should have attended.92 The final, clinching evidencethat the trial did indeed take place, though without Smart’s precise choice of soloists, comesfrom the annual accounts for 1828. The list of sums paid to ‘Vocalists’ ends with eight guineasto the Cawse sisters, three guineas to the tenor Frederick William Horncastle, and two and ahalf guineas to the bass Edward Taylor, bracketed together as costs of the ‘Trial of Beethoven’s9th Symphony’ (fig. 12). (As well as being a soloist, Taylor later assisted the Society in, amongother things, translations from the German and in its relations with Spohr.) In addition to

89 RPS MS 280, f. 88v.90 RPS MS 336, ff. 69-71.91 Foster, op. cit., p. 87. Willetts, op. cit., p. 52, follows him in concluding that no trial was given.92 RPS MS 280, f. 89.


Fig. 12. Payment to the soloists and chorus for the trial performance ofthe symphony in 1828, from the account book. RPS MS 299, f. 16v.


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these sums, £8 15s. was paid for a chorus.93 If Harris kept to the agreed terms, afterdeducting his own three guineas, this would have provided a chorus of just sixteen. At thistrial Smart finally had the opportunity, if not under ideal circumstances (but perhaps twiceover, as will be seen), to put into practice those ‘effects’ he had learned from Beethoven.

However, the presumption must be that the trial was not a success since, after all that expenseno performance of the Ninth was given at the concerts. Indeed, a performance at the concerts,despite Smart’s obvious wish, was no foregone conclusion: Bishop had added a rider to hisreport of the terms agreed for the chorus, ‘The whole without reference to any other nightbeyond the Trial Night’. Once again, The Harmonicon cannot have helped, indeed it was on thisoccasion even more outspoken. Its correspondent going by the name of ‘Dilettante’, in a reportdated 31 January, claimed to be able to write only at second hand – ‘None but members wereadmitted, so I can only make my memorandum by hearsay’ – but was not short on strongopinions. The piece, which he says had been performed twice, is ‘a whimsical work which all of[Beethoven’s] admirers who possess any critical acumen, most reasonably and earnestly wish hadnever escaped out of his portfolio’, and he concluded that ‘those who promote the performanceof this, his worst, his most absurd work, are among the deadliest foes to his reputation.’94 Therewas no reason for ‘Dilettante’ to have been excluded from the Philharmonic trial performance,for he had been among the founders of the Society, and remained a member; in fact he was ofcourse the editor of The Harmonicon, and author of much of its comment, William Ayrton.95 Itwould appear that his may well have been one of the principal voices within the Society, alongwith Horsley, opposed to further performance of the symphony. Ayrton had been the Society’sfirst Treasurer and one of the Directors of the very first season; he attended meetingsassiduously, and was elected a Director again in 1815, 1817 and 1819. But then in 1820 there wastrouble: Ayrton had in some unspecified way caused offence to J. B. Cramer (the elder brotherof François), declined to apologize, and had eventually to be forced to resign his Directorship.Thereafter, apart from the single occasion on which Weber was elected an Honorary Member,he ceased to attend meetings of the Society or to take part in its affairs. It may be no more thana coincidence, but in the summer of 1827, a few months after Horsley’s formal motion to restrictthe commissioning powers of Directors had finally been considered and rejected, Ayrtonresumed attendance at general meetings. Even then, when he was elected Director in 1831 hedeclined to serve, and only fully resumed his part in the Society’s business the following yearwhen he once again became both a Director and Treasurer.96

In the event the 1828 season saw performances of Beethoven’s First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth,Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, none of them conducted by Smart. But one moreencounter between Smart and the Ninth Symphony is known, at the benefit concert in 1830of Charles Neate, one of the work’s supporters from the beginning. In preparation for thisconcert, on 12 April the Philharmonic librarian, Joseph Calkin, was ‘desired [by theDirectors] to send the 9th Symphony of Beethoven to Sir G. Smart’; the Directors presentat that meeting included both Neate and Smart, and Bishop.97 The concert took place at theKing’s Theatre concert room on 26 April; a preliminary circular (fig. 13) announces that98

93 RPS MS 299, f. 16v.94 Harmonicon, 1828, pp. 55-6.95 Langley, op. cit., pp. 361-3, 512.96 RPS MS 275, passim, especially the meetings of 17 April – 1 July 1820, 19 June 1831, and 5 July and 5 November

1832.97 RPS MS 280, f. 84.98 BL, Playbills 320/11.




Fig. 13. Preliminary notice of Charles Neate’s benefit concert, 1830. Playbills 320/11, f. 2r.


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In the course of the Concert, and by permission of the Philharmonic Society, will beperformed, Beethoven’s Grand Characteristic Sinfonia, with vocal solos and fullchorus; Composed expressly for the Philharmonic Society. In order to do justice tothis great and masterly Composition, the Orchestra will be numerous and completein every department.

In due course the concert was the subject of a particularly brief notice in The Harmonicon,99 butmuch revealing detail comes from the bill for the concert itself.100 The symphony occupied thesecond half; the miscellaneous first part opened with Weber’s overture Euryanthe, and, inaddition to vocal numbers, Neate played in an unpublished piano trio of his own compositionand was the soloist in Hummel’s Piano Concerto in E, a work he had performed at thePhilharmonic concerts the previous month. Smart conducted the whole programme, and in thefirst part the orchestra was led by Spagnoletti. The symphony was led by Nicolas Mori; thesoloists were Mme Fanny Stockhausen, Miss H. Cawse, the tenor Pierre Begrez, and, oncemore, Edward Taylor, with a ‘Full Chorus’, ‘assisted by the young gentlemen of His Majesty’sChapels Royal’. The bill (fig. 14) lists by name an orchestra of thity-nine strings (twenty violins),almost all of whom were current or future members of the Philharmonic’s orchestra, with cellosled by Lindley and the basses by Dragonetti. The entire wind section consisted of players whoalso appeared at the Philharmonic that season, and at least twelve of them had also played in thefirst performance in 1825, as had a good number of the named string players.

It is not stated in which language the last movement of the symphony was performed, but onthe back of the bill, following the programme, there is a prose translation of Schiller’s ‘Ode toJoy’. Under the heading ‘Composed expressly for the Philharmonic Society’, the preamble tothis translation states that the ode

constitutes the vocal part of this Symphony, [and] may convey some idea of thecharacter of this great production, and of the various sensations which influenced themind of the Composer.

Somebody at the Philharmonic thought enough of this translation to cut it out and paste it toone of the front free fly-leaves of the Philharmonic’s manuscript score when it was bound.101 TheHarmonicon did not abandon its stance on the work itself in its report of Neate’s concert, butconceded that ‘It was executed admirably, and seemed to afford the audience much satisfaction’.

Poor Smart’s 1825 performance has been variously described as ‘a fiasco’,102 and one in which‘the symphony was mercilessly butchered’. The latter phrase comes from an ecstatic review inThe Musical World of Moscheles’s 1837 performance during the course of which the writersurveyed the work’s history at the Philharmonic. The blame for the neglect of the work for twelveyears is laid firmly at the door of The Harmonicon and the Quarterly Musical Magazine andReview. The Society, it is claimed, blindly followed the critics, causing the score to be ‘laid asideas useless lumber’.103 But elsewhere in the same issue J. H. Gauntlett, who had been a youngorganist in 1830, was more favourable towards the performance at Neate’s benefit, merelyregretting that ‘the short rehearsal and limited means afforded to the beneficier … were notcalculated to render that degree of justice which so great a work of art merited.’104

It is hardly surprising that Smart apparently never essayed the work again, despite theexperience and knowledge that he had gone to considerable trouble to accumulate. Tensions

99 Harmonicon, 1830, p. 305.100 BL, Playbills, loc, cit.101 RPS MS 5, f. iii.102 Levy, op. cit., p. 162.103 The Musical World, v (1837), p. 93.104 Ibid, p. 97.




Fig. 14. Announcement and programme for Neate’s benefit, 1830, listing the instrumental players engaged.Playbills 320/11, f. 1r.

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within the Philharmonic membership clearly also had a role to play in the Society’s initialattitude to the greatest of all works in its impressive list of nearly two centuries ofcommissions.105 Alas the documents in the Society’s archive do not reveal what lay behind them.With the performance under Moscheles in 1837 the ‘Choral’ achieved success at the Society’sconcerts for the first time, paving the way for several further performances culminating in theone given in 1855 under Richard Wagner, the Society’s conductor for that season.

105 Ehrlich, op. cit., pp. 248-66


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