After the first sketches had been put to paper in 1815, Beethoven only finally put the finishing touches to his last completed symphony in 1824. With its extended finale in which soloists and choir perform, building the bridge to the symphonic cantata with their invocation of fraternity, it marks a caesura in the history of the symphony that echoed long into the nineteenth century. The main theme of the ode ''To Joy'' by Friedrich Schiller, set to music in the final movement, has become one of t