examines the influence of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on two major nineteenth-century composers, Richard Wagner and Robert Schumann. During 1845 46 the compositional styles of Schumann and Wagner changed in a common direction, toward a style that was more contrapuntal, more densely motivic, and engaged in processes of thematic transformation.
In this original study, Christopher Alan Reynolds examines the influence of Beethovens Ninth Symphony on two major nineteenth-century composers, Richard Wagner and Robert Schumann. During 1845/46 the compositional styles of Schumann and Wagner changed in a common direction, toward a style that was more contrapuntal, more densely motivic, and engaged in processes of thematic transformation. Reynolds shows that the stylistic advances that both composers made in Dresden in 1845/46 stemmed from a deepened understanding of Beethovens techniques and strategies in the Ninth Symphony. The evidence provided by their compositions from this pivotal year and the surrounding years suggests that they discussed Beethovens Ninth with each other in the months leading up to the performance of this work, which Wagner conducted on Palm Sunday in 1846
"Music historians have long been aware of two separate stories: one, that Beethovens Ninth Symphony exerted tremendous fascination on virtually all later symphonists; the other, that Richard Wagner saw his music drama as the next logical step to be taken after the Ninth. What Christopher Reynolds does in this imaginative and persuasive study is to bring these two stories together and to demonstrate that they are in fact a single story, one that emerged during the fateful 1845/46 meetings between Wagner and Schumann in Dresden." - Karol Berger, author of A Theory of Art and Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity