Beschreibung:

Ludwig van Beethoven
Sinfonie mit Schluss-Chor über Schillers Ode: "An die Freude" für grosses Orchester, 4 Solo- und 4 Chor-Stimmen componirt…von Ludwig van Beethoven. 125tes. Werk [full score], Mainz and Paris: bey B. Schotts Söhnen, Antwerp: bey A. Schott, [1826] 
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY, 226 pages, 1 blank leaf, folio (31.7 x 24.9cm), engraved music, lithographed title, printed subscribers’ list, without metronome marks, plate number 2322, no plate number to p.191, yellow edges, traces of original pale blue wrappers to outer pages, inscribed by William Waterhouse on front free endpaper ("from Robert Hermann London..."), nineteenth-century marbled boards, blank paper label to upper cover, without blank final leaf, edges of covers scuffed
A SUPERB COPY WITH EXCEPTIONALLY DEEP, CLEAN IMPRESSIONS.
The first edition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, of which this is an especially fine example, was advertised for sale at the end of August 1826. This is the first issue, containing the subscribers’ list, but not the composer’s notorious metronome markings which were added in later issues. 
The Ninth Symphony is of course one of the great monuments of western civilisation, and undoubtedly one of the most influential works of music ever written. It is the first major symphony to include a choral finale and set the model for future large-scale choral symphonies. The publication of the score (and parts) in 1826 followed two years after the celebrated first performance on 7 May 1824 at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna.
LITERATURE:Beethoven Werk-Verzeichnis, p.828; Hoboken, ii 501; Fuld, p.563
PROVENANCE:Formerly in the collection of the bassoonist William Waterhouse