4EU+ Concert: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Polish Choral Works

One of the most famous works in musical history featured at a concert of Collegium Musicum, which was realised within the 4EU+ European University Alliance. The choir and orchestra of Heidelberg University presented Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Friedrich Schiller’s setting of the “Ode to Joy”. It was a joint performance with the Academic Choir of the University of Warsaw which, under the baton of Irina Bogdanovich, presented Polish choral works from different centuries in the first half of the concert.

After that, the massed ensembles – with over 200 musicians on stage – performed Beethoven’s masterpiece under the general direction of University Music Director Michael Sekulla. The soloists were Iris Kupke (soprano), Julia Faylenbogen (mezzo-soprano), Christoph Wittmann (tenor) and Matthias Horn (bass). The concert took place on 23 July 2023 in the Great Hall of Heidelberg’s New University.

The 9th Symphony premiered in 1824 and is the last symphony completed by the composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 to 1827). The popular main theme of the final movement, a musical setting of Schiller’s poem with the passage “Freude, schöner Götterfunken” (joy, a spark of fire from heaven), was in 1985 declared the official European anthem by the European Community.