early settings of the ode to joy: schiller-beethoven-tepper

the musical times Spring 2013 1

olga baird

Early settings of the Ode to joy: Schiller–

Beethoven–Tepper de Ferguson

Researchers into the life and legacy of Ludwig van Beet hoven, and particularly of his Ninth Symphony, are well aware of the fact that he was not the first composer to set the Ode to joy by Friedrich

Schiller to music.1 The ode was written in autumn 1785, in Dresden, during Schiller’s stay with his friend Christian Gottfried Körner (1756–1831), a lawyer and amateur musician. Körner straightaway set to music Schiller’s ode,2 which had appeared in the Leipzig journal Thalia in 1786.3 Sending the ode to Georg Joachim Goshen, the publisher of Thalia, Schiller wrote: ‘The poem is beautifully set to music by Körner. What do you think about the idea of printing the music as well? It will take only half a page.’4

In the same year Schiller’s ode was set to music by the minor composer Johann Christian Muller (1749–96), who published his score in Leipzig, and also by the Dresden composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann (1741–1801), the chief conductor of the Elector of Saxony.5 These names open a long list of predecessors of Beethoven, composers of a different scale and of different levels of talent who turned to the Ode to joy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Among them there was, for example, a future teacher of Felix Mendelssohn, the Berlin composer Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758–1832), whose compositions were much admired by Goethe. Zelter’s chorale on the words of Schiller is dated 1792. The setting from 1815 by the 18-year-old Franz Schubert is considered one of the best early ones of the ode. On the other hand, there are many works that were harshly criticised by both contemporaries and later musicologists. For example, speaking of Schiller’s lines which were employed by Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony, and analysing in this regard some of the earlier musical settings of the ode, an English researcher wrote in 1901: Three other known settings of Schiller’s Ode to joy may soon be dismissed. The first is by Baron J.F.H. Dalberg (1752–1812),6 and consists of a few bars for solo and chorus in A, six-eight rhythm, repeated verse by verse ad nauseam. The second is an anonymous inspiration, a feeble thing of eighteen bars to which the eight stanzas of the poem are intended to be sung, one after another, with wearisome reiteration. The third claims little more attention by reason of its scope and attempt at something better. It is the composition of one Tepper von Ferguson, a native of Warsaw, who was Kapellmeister at St. Petersburg in 1801. It is for solo voices and chorus, and the date assigned to it is 1797.7

Interestingly enough, with the passing of time, the attitude of musico-logists to Tepper de Ferguson’s composition was changing. In 1927, in a

1. Beethoven used the second version of the ode, dated 1803.

2. Peter le Huray & James Day: Music and aesthetics in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries (Cambridge, 1988), p.176.

3. Thalia (Leipzig, 1786), vol.1, book 2, pp.1–5.

4. Viscount Goschen: The life and times of Georg Joachim Goschen, publisher and printer of Leipzig, 1752–1828 (London, 1903), vol.1, p.120.

5. Johann Gottlieb Naumann (1741–1801), composer, conductor and Kapellmeister. In the 1780s he worked in Sweden. He was invited to Dresden as a composer of spiritual music.

6. The interest of the canon of Trier and Worms, Johann-Friedrich-Hugo von Dalberg (1752–1812), in Schiller’s Ode to joy is easily understandable: the successful premiere of Schiller’s Die Räuber in January 1782 took place in the Mannheim theatre thanks to the efforts of his brother Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg (1750–1806), the superintendant of the theatre.

7. ‘Notes on the words of Beethoven’s choral symphony’, in The Musical Times vol.42 no.703 (September 1901), pp.590–92.

Early settings of the Ode to joy: Schiller–Beethoven–Tepper de Ferguson2

8. Beethoven Newsletter vol.9, nos.2–3 (1994), p.115.

9. An early setting of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’, in Fidelio, Spring 1993, www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/931_Schiller_Ode.html.

10. Georg Günther: Frühe Schiller-Vertonungen bis 1825, Denkmäler der Musik in Baden-Württemberg, vol.18 (Munich, 2005), pp.lv–lvi.

11. Michael Broyles: Beethoven: the emergence and evolution of Beethoven’s heroic style (New York, 1987), pp.261–62.

12. Dieter Hildebrandt: Die Neunte: Schiller, Beethoven und die Geschichte eines musikalischen Welterfolgs (Munich, 2005), pp.124–25.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra programme, Dalberg’s opus was again called ‘feeble’ but the authors refrained from criticising Tepper’s work. In 1994 Tepper de Ferguson’s cantata was described as one of the few well-developed early compositions;8 and in 1993–1997, in the journal of the American Schiller Institute, the author of the article ‘An early setting of Schiller’s “Ode to joy”’ wrote enthusiastically about ‘an otherwise un-known, Haydnesque com poser with the name (or pseudonym) of Tepper von Ferguson’ who in 1797

published in a limited subscription edition in Berlin, a grandiose choral version of ‘An die Freude’ with four soloists, chorus, and with each verse and its refrain set as a separate movement, complete with changes in key and tempo, and beginning with a bass solo – in these respects a curious and perhaps unique foretaste of Beethoven’s much later choral symphony. (The printed version has a keyboard accompaniment which might be a reduction of a lost orchestral score).9

In 2005 the German musicologist Georg Günther, having very posi tively assessed Tepper’s composition, even stated that among the early musical settings of the Ode to joy, it is on such a scale that it is comes close to the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.10

In 1987, having included Tepper de Ferguson’s cantata in the list of predecessors of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the American musico-logist Michael Broyles noted that it was not known whether Beethoven was familiar with Tepper’s music, and decisively dismissed any link between the two works.11 In 2005 Dieter Hildebrandt, analysing the relations between Schiller’s Ode and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, called Tepper ‘an unknown and so far un-researched composer’.12 In general, writing about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Western musicologists commonly refer to Tepper de Ferguson’s composition, but it is obvious that they know virtually nothing about its author. Thus it remains un-clear whether Beethoven was familiar with it and whether there is an actual connection between these works and their creators.

First of all, it must be said that Ludwig Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (this is not a pseudonym, but his real name), is neither an ‘unknown and so far un-researched’ person, nor an ‘otherwise

unknown, Haydnesque composer’. Ferguson Tepper is well known in Poland – this extremely wealthy and influential banker family played an important part in Polish international trade during the 18th century. Lud-wig Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (1768–1838), one of the banker’s sons, showed his musical talent early. Having been educated for the career of a diplomat or a lawyer, he was forced to turn to composition and teaching music after the collapse of his father’s bank and the loss of the family’s fortune in 1793. After several years which he had spent in Strasbourg,


13. Günther (Frühe Schiller-Vertonungen) assumed, without any grounds, that Tepper had lived in Hamburg until 1796, then moved to Berlin where he possibly stayed until his death. This is surprising, as his move to Russia and his post of court Kapellmeister is mentioned in several early musical dictionaries (L-E. Gerber, J. Sainsbury and A.Choron, etc.).

14. AM Stupel: ‘Lizeyskii uchitel musyki’, in Pushkin: issledovaniia i materialy (Moscow & Leningrad, 1960), vol.3, pp.362–377.

15. The Memoir, in French, is preserved in the family of the descendants of Tepper’s older brother. It has been translated into Russian and prepared for publication in St Petersburg. In this article, the quotations from the Memoir have been translated into English by Olga Baird.

16. In Liberty writings of Dr. Hermann Kiefer (New York, 1917), p.388.

Vienna and Hamburg, he went to Russia, where he became known as Kapellmeister at the Imperial court and a music teacher to the Grand Duchesses, the younger sisters of the Emperor Alexander I.13 Later he taught choral singing at the Imperial Lycée in Tsarskoe Selo, where among his pupils was the future great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and his friends included the students of the first, ‘brilliant’ Lycée class. He wrote the music for the ‘Farewell song of the first Lycée students’ which was first performed at the Lycée on 9 June 1817, and his chamber music was played in Petersburg musical salons during the early 19th century. His personality and activity form a research subject of Pushkin studies and musicology. A detailed article on his personality and musical legacy was published as early as 1960 by the prominent Soviet musicologist AM Stupel.14 Tepper is commemorated at the Museum-Pushkin’s Lycée at Tsarskoe Selo.

Relatively recently, the author of this article was lucky to discover an extensive memoir by Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (1768–1838) in his own handwriting.15 It describes his life from his birth in Warsaw on 18 December 1768 until 1824. It appears that the memoir contains some details which help us to understand better Tepper’s own musical work and his relationship with both Schiller and Beethoven. The memoir does not clarify the picture completely, but provides a much better understanding of cultural and social background and historic circumstances in relation to musical settings of Schiller’s masterpiece.

Recollecting his childhood, Tepper describes in detail his two-year stay at the Military Academy of Prince Charles-Eugene of Württem berg in Stutt gart. Tepper entered the Academy in May 1781, just six months after 15 December 1780, when Friedrich Schiller had graduated and been ap-pointed a regimental doctor in Stuttgart. During the two years of Tepper’s study at the Academy, Schiller gave many reasons to occupy the minds of both students and teachers. In late May–early June 1781 Schiller published his tragedy Die Räuber, and on 13 January 1782 its highly successful premiere took place at the Mannheim theatre, followed by the duke’s conflict with Schiller and his two-week detention. In the same year Schiller published the Antologie für 1782, which included 83 poems, 48 of which were his own. Although the name of the author-compiler was not specified in the pub lic ation, it was known to readers. On 22 September 1782, in disguise, Schiller fled from Stuttgart.

In the eyes of the students Schiller’s name gave additional lustre to the institution, and it was an honour to study at the same school which produced a playwright of whose first play the Erfurter Gelehrter Zeitung wrote: ‘If we have ever expected to see a German Shakespeare, this is the man’.16 However, Schiller himself did not bear any warm feelings towards the Academy, and a few years later he wrote: ‘Any inclination to poetry violated


17. Rheinische Thalia, 1785.

18. Anton Graff (1736–1813), a great German portrait painter of Swiss origin and from 1766 a painter at the court of the Elector of Saxony.

19. Currently at the Museum of Dresden Romanticism (Kügelgenhaus).

the laws of the institution where I was educated and contradicted the plan of its founder. [...] But the passion for poetry is strong and fiery, like first love. What discipline meant to extinguish, was blown into flame.’17

Young Tepper was clearly much interested in Schiller, as in his memoirs he retells stories about the poet which he could have heard from older Academy students and from its officers and teachers. However, in contrast to Schiller, who hated the Academy, Tepper praises it very highly and considers it to be one of the best education institutions in Europe. Trying to explain and reconcile the conflict between Schiller and the Academy, he writes: Perhaps no school can offer as many useful subjects in such a short time. I am not talking about Schiller. He was a genius who was developing himself, and such a development could happen even in a desert. He had little to do with the Academy, and the only subject which he was forced to study and in which he was not later engaged, was surgery. His talent for poetry and theatre had already shown itself, and one should thank the Academy for his tragedy about the robbers which was written there. [...] Schiller left the Academy prior to my arrival. The Duke did not like Schiller and appointed him as a surgeon at the garrison. I remember seeing him once in the uniform of that regiment. He left a few months later and never came back.

Tepper de Ferguson met and became acquainted with Schiller in the autumn of 1793, but even before their meeting several episodes took place in Tepper’s life which could have kept alive his memory of and interest in Schiller. From December 1791 to March 1792 Tepper was in Dresden, acting as a secretary to the Polish diplomatic mission, headed by Prince Adam Kazimir Czartoryski. The objective of the mission was to offer the Polish crown to the Elector of Saxony in accordance with the provisions of the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791. ‘The subject that we have brought to Dresden was significant enough to excite general curiosity. [...] Everybody made efforts to welcome everything that was Polish, and especially the Prince’s retinue, so we were showered by balls, lunches, dinners and entertainment of all kinds.’ The musically gifted memoirist was particularly sensitive to musical impressions, and remarked that in regard to music, he was able to satisfy all his wishes. It is hard to imagine that he did not meet Christian Gottfried Körner, the first author of the music of the Ode to joy, who at that time actively corresponded with Schiller, and whose house was the centre of Dresden musical and literary gatherings. Among Körner’s guests was Johann Gottlieb Naumann, another author of a musical setting to Schiller’s ode. It appears from the memoir that Tepper knew Naumann, attended his rehearsals and considered him to be a composer who ‘added glory to his name and whose works will continue to live’.

During his three-month stay in Dresden, Tepper sat for a portrait by the famous artist Anton Graff (1736–1813),18 who only in September 1791 had finally finished a portrait of Schiller which he had begun in 1786.19 In March


1792 Tepper was proud to see his own portrait at the annual exhibition at the Dresden Art Academy. We can assume that the Schiller portrait was shown there, as well.

The paths of Tepper and Schiller finally brought them face to face in October 1793 in Stuttgart. It was a critical period in Tepper’s life. The collapse of his father’s bank deprived him of the material means of subsistence and forced him to leave Warsaw. He spent several months in Strasbourg, where he experienced the siege of the city by Austrian troops and witnessed the beginning of revolutionary terror. Due to the dramatic development of the political situation and his own unfortunate personal circumstances, without any real plans for the future, Tepper left for Vienna. From a comparison of dates and facts described in his memoir, it is clear that on his way to Vienna he spent no more than four or five days in Stuttgart, but they were filled with important events and impressions:I arrived in Stuttgart at a time which was interesting to a former pupil of the Military Academy: the death of Duke Charles.20 I was satisfied by the chance to pay him my last tribute, as I saw him lying in his coffin and attended his funeral. [...] In Stuttgart, I became acquainted with Schiller, to whom a convalescence trip had been prescribed by his doctor, and who used the death of Duke Charles* to see his homeland again. To my great regret, I saw him only a little, because he was sick all the time. He came with Schubart-junior,21

who also used to be a student at the Academy, and at that time he was Prussian Minister at Nuremberg. He was going to the place of his service and was parting from his friend, whom his illness forced to stay; we agreed to go to Ulm together on a stagecoach.

* [Tepper’s footnote] It is known that Schiller left the duke’s service without leave, and he was prohibited from showing up there during the duke’s reign)

Indeed, from the beginning of September 1793, Schiller with his family lived in Ludwigsburg, where on 14 September his first child was born. On 24 October Schiller, like Tepper, witnessed the transfer of the body of the deceased duke to the princely burial vault in Ludwigsburg. Although it is clear from the memoir that the meeting with Schiller was transi-ent, and Tepper had all too little time and opportunities to establish a close relationship with him, Schiller, of course, was a subject of conversation between the two young travellers on their way to Ulm: ‘Schubart was a good companion: he had an original mind and a brilliant way of expressing himself. Moreover, he was a former fellow of the Academy and, like me, an avid musician; thus I found everything I needed for a pleasant journey.’

On the 16 November 1793, Tepper arrived in Vienna, where Beethoven had already been living for a year. About the circumstances of Beethoven’s appearance in Vienna at the end of 1792, we know from a letter written to Schiller’s wife Charlotte by Bartholomew Fischenich (1768–1831), professor of law in Bonn and a friend of Schiller. The letter is dated 26 January 1793, and Fischenich describes Beethoven as a ‘local young man whose musical talents are praised by everybody around, and whom the Elector has just

20. 24 October 1793.

21. Ludwig Albrecht Schubart (1765–1811), son of the poet and musician Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739–91) and a friend of Schiller. He studied at the Military Academy from 1777 and was a writer and legation secretary of the diplomatic mission at the Prussian court.


sent to Vienna to Haydn. He’s going to set to music Schiller’s “Joy”, and, furthermore, every stanza of it. I expect something perfect, because as far as I know him, he was born for the grand and sublime.’22 This familiar quotation is the only documentary source that reveals Beethoven's interest in the Ode to joy as early as 1792–93. No musical sketches by Beethoven dated from that time have survived.

Beethoven became one of the first of Tepper’s Viennese acquaintances. Having been offered lodgings at the house of Prince Michael-Kazimir Oginski, and enthusiastically joining Viennese musical circles, Tepper wrote:

One hardly can find in Vienna a person who could not play any musical instrument or sing more or less well. Not only evenings in society have never been without music, but it often was performed even in the mornings. Karl Lichnowsky’s23 quartet played regularly on Fridays from 10am to 12am24 (it was there that I became acquainted with Beethoven, who soon became my friend.)

Tepper was only two years older than Beethoven, a very keen clavecin player, and both Tepper and Beethoven quickly gained equally brilliant reputations as keyboard virtuosi.

Tepper met Beethoven not only at Karl Lichnowsky’s. Beethoven, in his turn, must have visited the house of Michael-Kazimir Oginski who was a patron of Joseph Wölffl (1773–1812), one of the most talented piano players of these years, with whom Beethoven would have a ‘piano duel’ in 1799.25

Both Beethoven and Tepper were regular visitors to the house of Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Later Beethoven dedicated his First Symphony to him, and Tepper described musical gatherings in van Swieten’s house:

There was a club of gentlemen of the highest society who gathered there together,26 sharing costs equally between them; they met regularly in each other’s homes to inter pret the works of deceased composers. [...] Complete silence was observed there and per formances left nothing to be desired. These concerts were usually given during Lent. I did not miss any of them – it was there that I heard for the first time great compositions by Handel.

Both Tepper and Beethoven attended the musical salon of Fanny von Arnstein, a remarkable pianist and singer. In 1796 it was she who supplied Tepper, who was leaving Vienna, with letters of recommendation to her family in Berlin. Thus there is hardly any doubt that the young Pole, who had come to Vienna with the name of Schiller on his lips, was familiar with Beethoven’s first ideas about the Ode to joy and with his musical sketches, if such sketches indeed existed.

In 1796, independently from each other, Beethoven and Tepper left Vienna. Beethoven departed in February for the musical tour which had been organised for him by Karl Lichnowsky. The tour took several months, and its route went through Prague, Dresden, Leipzig and Berlin. Tepper left in August for Hamburg where his elder brother was living, hoping to

22. In Emilie von Gleichen-Russwurm: Charlotte von Schiller und ihre Freunde, vol.3 (Stuttgart, 1865), pp.100–01.

23. Karl Alois Johann-Nepomuk Vinzenz Lichnowsky (1761–1814), patron of Mozart and one of the most significant aristocratic patrons of Beethoven.

24. The composition of the quartet changed but its main members were Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776–1830), Franz Weiss (1778–1830), Antonin Kraft (1752–1820), his son Nicolaus Kraft (1778–1853), and Louis Sina (1785–1857). The very young age of almost all the performers is striking.

25. See ‘The Beethoven-Wölffl piano duel: aesthetic debates and social boundaries’, in Tia DeNora: Beethoven and the construction of genius (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London, 1995).

26. Tepper describes the Gesellschaft der Associierten, an aristocratic society of Viennese lovers of music founded by Baron Gottfried van Swieten in 1786.


earn a living by giving music lessons. But in his memoir another meeting with Beethoven is recorded:

I left Vienna in August 1796. [...] In Prague, I met Beethoven, who was returning from Berlin. We spent together several days that I was staying in that city. I even had a funny adventure with him. On a Sunday we took a carriage to go for a drive. Wanting to cross the river from one side to another and to shorten the way, our coachman directed the carriage straight into the river. Seeing that other people were doing the same thing, I was not worried, but soon I realised that instead of going to the left, we had turned to the right, which led us towards the rapids. Finally, I broke the silence and shouted to the coachman to stop, while the gestures and cries of other people confirmed to me that we were in danger. Beethoven, who probably was dreaming of a new sonata, did not notice anything until the water filled the carriage and wet his feet. Looking around and seeing himself in the waves, he uttered such a piercing scream that he frightened me as much as the danger itself. The horse was scared too, and we no longer were able to manage it. Fortunately, we were just able to stop it. As the mare harnessed to our carriage was not particularly frisky, we escaped, I do not know how. I could not help laughing at ourselves and poor Beethoven, and all his gestures. ‘If ever you need to portray a shipwreck in music,’ I said to him,‘you’ll be able to work from memory’.

On the whole, it is possible to conclude that Beethoven’s Viennese environment in 1793–96 was very favourable for the development of his early musical ideas for the Ode to joy, the first mention of which dates back to 1792–93. Among other things, this was due to relations between Beethoven and his Polish peer, a well-educated, worldly and musically gifted performer. While Beethoven had never met Schiller, Tepper not only studied at the same institution as Schiller, was aware of the events of Schiller’s youth, knew from his own experience the everyday and artistic context of the Ode to joy, and had even met Schiller personally, although this acquaintance was in-deed fleeting. In this sense, young Tepper served as a kind of connecting link between Beethoven and Schiller, which helped Beethoven to keep his idea, maybe even giving it a certain direction by his own musical efforts.

After meeting with Beethoven in Prague, Tepper continued his journey to Hamburg. Having Berlin on the way, he made a prolonged stop there: ‘The letters, which madam Arnstein in Vienna gave me for her family in Berlin, and their warm welcome caused me to stay for nineteen days in that city. I spent them with this interesting family, and these days were a delight. That time of my life I always love to recollect.’

Tepper’s memoir clarifies that he arrived in Hamburg in September 1796. Early music dictionaries mention his significant musical success in Hamburg: ‘His extraordinary ability on the piano, as well as his taste and knowledge of the science were highly praised at Hamburgh, in which city he made some stay in 1796, probably, before his departure for Petersburg.’27 His memoir, however, presents a different picture:

My brother did his best to inform everyone about my plans to give music lessons. But some people thought that I was too young, others felt that my amateurish talent might

27. John Sainsbury: A dictionary of musicians: from the earliest ages to the present time (London, 1824), p.474.


not be sufficient for teaching. To this, various small intrigues were added. Everybody judged me without seeing me, and little was lacking in order to say: ‘I do not know him, and he may be one of those fortune seekers who think that if they were in Vienna, they can teach us.’ In short, nobody wanted to entrust their children to me, and my clients did not extend beyond the two students, one of which was from a Scottish family newly arrived in Hamburg, and the other was a married lady, who wanted to have a teacher, because it was fashionable [...] Nowhere is the pressure of these little Lycurguses felt as strongly as in Hamburg, and here it is combined with rudeness, which is special for this part of Germany. Add to this their conceit, and you will get a chorus of people who feel superior to everybody else, because they are who they are and they have money. There was no humiliation caused to me by this miserable flock that I would not want to erase from memory. They depressed me so strongly that I feared nothing so much as to find in the living room a piano, which I would be forced to play.

Apparently, Tepper’s resentment and frustration were so strong that he even did not mention in his memoir that it was in Hamburg that he published by subscription his choral composition to the words by Schiller: Schillers Ode an die Freude in Musik gesetzt von Tepper von Ferguson. Hamburg, bey Günther & Böhme.

The publication is not dated. In modern musical literature, the dates allocated to it range from 1794 to 1797. Günther dated it more exactly, to the beginning of 1797, on the grounds that among the subscribers there was Princess Augusta of Prussia (1780–1841) whose marriage on 13 February 1797 changed her title to Princess of Hessen-Kassel. This means that the score could not have been published later than January 1797.28 We can add that Günther and Böhme’s announcement about the forthcoming publication of Tepper’s composition appeared in the December issue of the Weimar Journal des Luxus und der Moden for 1796. It informed the public that subscriptions would be accepted until mid-December, as the editors intended to publish the sheet music just before Christmas.29

Therefore, the publication can be firmly dated to December 1796. However, this does not mean that Tepper’s work on his composition should be dated to the same period. He could have started it when still in Vienna – thinking of Schiller and his relationship with Beethoven – and then continued his work in Prague (again, conversing with Beethoven!) and in Berlin, before bringing to Hamburg a composition which was ready, or nearly ready for publication.30

Describing the forthcoming edition to readers of the Journal des Luxus und der Moden, Günther and Böhme wrote: It has long been a common desire of all friends of music, and we can even say, of the whole nation, to have music to the ode ‘To Joy’ by the immortal Schiller which is worthy of the text. Several composers, including famous ones, already ventured to set it to music. But none of these composers has deserved our undivided applause. There are from 6 to 8 compositions in existence, often borrowed from each other, and none of them is liked by public and, moreover, they let us feel how far behind the poet all these composers remain. One of the reasons for the small success of their compositions may be that their authors

28. Günther: Frühe Schiller-Vertonungen bis 1825.

29. Journal des Luxus und der Moden, Jahr 11 (December 1796), pp.231–32.

30. It is worth mentioning that under the text of Günther & Böhme’s announcement which appeared in December 1796, there is the date ‘October 1795’. It well may be an ordinary misprint but, if not, it means that Tepper finished his cantata while still in Vienna, sent it to Hamburg to Günther & Böhme, and arrived in Hamburg shortly before its publication.


wanted to set this ode to one tune, like any other song, but the sentiments expressed in it are so varied that seems to require a separate tune for each stanza.

The young talented composer, who has already become known to public for his other works, Mr. Tepper von Ferguson, ventured to set to different music each of the nine stanzas of Schiller’s ode ‘To Joy’. The setting for four voices is written for soprano, alto, tenor and bass, accompanied only by clavier. This work in its integrity is a cantata for four voices. The author addresses his composition not only to connoisseurs, but he arranged it in such a way that all amateurs,31 circles of friends and all meetings where joy reigns would be able to use it.

This work will be issued by subscription at our publishing house. It will be engraved, printed on fine Dutch paper and decorated with a portrait of Schiller.32

The score was indeed printed beautifully;32 the title page (fig.1) is decorated with a large and detailed vignette: in the foreground on the right there is an allegorical composition consisting of musical notes, theatrical mask and musical instruments: the lyre and the trumpet. In the centre,

31. This expression can be associated with the title of CPE Bach’s sonatas Für Kenner und Liebhaber. Tepper was familiar with them, as Bach dedicated the first series (1779) to his former mentor Eleonora Zernitz, who at that time taught music to little Tepper.

32. Journal des Luxus und der Moden, Jahr 11 (December 1796), pp.231–32.

33. In 1859 a copy of the notes was exhibited at the centenary Schiller-exhibition in Weimar.

Fig.1: Schiller's Ode to joy, set to music by Tepper von Ferguson, title page


putti are dancing around Schiller’s portrait – Johann Gotthard Muller’s (1747–1830) engraving after the portrait of the poet by Anton Graff. The name of Graff unites Tepper and Schiller: Graff worked on the portraits of both in Dresden at almost the same time, in 1791–1792. The portrait also reminds us of Tepper’s meeting with Schiller in Stuttgart in 1793: it was there and then that J-G. Muller was working on this engraving.

Beside Hamburg, the subscription was organised in several German towns, and also in Zurich, Prague, Vienna and St Petersburg. The list of ‘prenumerants’ occupies two pages and contains 158 names. In total they subscribed to 391 copies, a pretty satisfactory number; al though we can guess that the composer might have felt disappointed: there are no subscribers from Zurich or St Petersburg (but there are sub scribers from Linz, Paris, Copenhagen and even London). Naturally, the largest number of subscribers is from Hamburg – 41 people who signed up for 66 copies. But in the second place is Berlin – 29 people who have subscribed for 64 copies. This might suggest that the young man had been noticed during his 19 days spent in the capital of Prussia, and also this in directly supports the supposition that the subscribers may already have been aware of Tepper’s work and were interested in its development.

In his Frühe Schiller-Vertonungen bis 1825 Günther gave a general characteristic of the list of subscribers. We will analyse it from the point of view of the personal relations between Tepper and his subscribers, their place in his life, and their possible role of direct and indirect mediators between Tepper and Beethoven. It seems that the names of the subscribers often not only confirm the facts mentioned in Tepper’s memoirs, but shed more light on them.

The list of subscribers is headed by the names of royalty. Besides the already mentioned Princess Augusta of Prussia, Her Royal Highness the Dowager Landgräfin Philippine of Hesse-Kassel (1745–1800), signed for two copies of Tepper’s cantata. Here also are the names of Prince Anton Henrik Radziwill (1775–1833) and his wife Princess Louise. A young Polish aristocrat and politician, Anton Radziwill was at the court of King of Prussia from 1792, and married in 1796 Princess Louise of Prussia (1770–1836), the niece of Frederick the Great. The Prussian court hoped to see him as an intermediary between the Prussian government and the Poles who found themselves on the territories which were ceded to Prussia after the final partition of Poland. The couple shared a deep interest in music and art, and their palace in Berlin was a place of regular concerts. Both were gifted performers, and their names in the list of subscribers suggest that Tepper, a keen musician with a strong reputation as a virtuoso performer and a fellow countryman of Radziwill, visited their house during his stay in Berlin.


Berlin subscribers included Madame Levy (née Itzig) and Madame Wulff (née Itzig). Both were sisters of Fanny von Arnstein – Sarah (1761–1854), the wife of a prosperous banker, the hostess of the famous musical salon and a talented pianist herself,34 and Cecilia or Zippora (1760–1836), also a musically gifted member of this artistic family. After parting from her first husband, Cecilia Wulff married Bernhard Eskeles, and in 1799 moved to Vienna, where, along with her sister Fanny, she had an artistic salon. Beethoven visited her house and even made a note in her album: ‘Let a man be noble, kind and always ready to help.’ They are the big and ‘interesting’ family, to which Fanny von Arnstein introduced Tepper, and which he always loved to recollect.

Other Berlin subscribers were the children of the famous philosopher Moses Mendelssohn: Joseph (1770–1848), the influential banker, and Henrietta-Maria (1775–1831) who, like all children of the philosopher, re-ceived a good education and was interested in music, art and literature. The Itzig and Mendelssohn families were united in 1804, when Leah, the niece of Fanny, Sarah and Zippora, married Abraham Mendelssohn (1776–1835). They became the parents of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, in whose musical education the aunts took a large part.

The name of the only subscriber from Paris – Ignaz Joseph Pleyel (1757–1831) – reminds us about Tepper’s university years. The famous and popu-lar composer and conductor was an organist at Strasbourg Cathedral while Tepper, after leaving the Military Academy, was continuing his education at the University of Strasbourg (1783–89). Tepper wanted to take violin lessons from Pleyel but although that dream was never realised, he regu larly attended Pleyel’s concerts and from time to time played in his orchestra:

In winter seasons, public concerts were held in Strasbourg, which were conducted by Pleyel. These concerts were excellent, good music was performed, and I was very glad to hear there the First Symphony by Mozart. [...] The local orchestra was wonderful, and I much enjoyed them. These concerts created the impression of good society, not from the beauty of their hall, but from the members of the orchestra, and they took amateurs, if they felt sufficiently confident. I played with them regularly twice a year.

It seems that Pleyel well remembered the young man – and subscribed to 12 copies of the Ode to joy.

Among the Hamburg subscribers was a ‘Mr Reicha’, in whom it is easy to recognise the Czech composer and close friend of Beethoven Anton Reicha (1770–1836). They became acquainted back in Bonn, where both played in the orchestra of the court chapel. In 1794 Reicha moved to Hamburg where, like Tepper, he gave music lessons. In 1801 he went to Vienna, where he resumed his friendship with Beethoven.

There are also subscribers from Vienna: the banker Puton, a good friend of Tepper, who supported him in difficult times; Fanny von Arnstein

34. See Peter Wollny: ‘Sara Levy and the making of musical taste in Berlin’, in The Musical Quarterly vol.77 no.4 (1993), pp.651–88.


subscribed to six copies, and her good friend Baroness Sebottendorf to three. Johann Träg, a Viennese music dealer, publisher and copyist with whom Beethoven started to collaborate as early as 1793, ordered 25 copies. Träg took subscriptions to Tepper’s cantata in Vienna, which explains the substantial number of ordered copies. In Prague, subscriptions were taken by Johann Wenzel (1762–1831), the organist of St Vitus’s Cathedral. He was well known in Vienna as a collaborator of Constanze Mozart, performer of her late husband’s music and publisher of his works. He also ordered 25 copies.

In summary, it is possible to conclude that while there is no trace of early Beethoven’s thoughts about Schiller’s ode, Tepper’s zeal at the same period culminated in the creation of a large-scale, complex and thoroughly composed work. It might be a creative result of his communication with Beethoven and his perception of Beethoven’s early ideas, among which was the one, described by Bartholomeus Fischenich in 1793, to set to music each stanza of Schiller’s Ode to joy.

The question whether Beethoven was familiar with Tepper’s composition can also be answered. Yes, he definitely was. Although Beethoven does not appear on the list of subscribers, too many people around him possessed the score of Tepper’s cantata, and at different periods of his life Beethoven met people who used to know a companion of his Viennese youth: Fanny von Arnstein and Johann Träg, then Cecilia Eskeles and Anton Reicha, later Anton Henrik Radziwill.

But we should be wary of stating that Tepper’s early composition influenced in any way one of the most mature and sophisticated of Beethoven’s works – his Ninth Symphony, which was created almost 20 years later. While for Tepper, Schiller’s ode was the main content, reason and meaning of his composition, Beethoven used the ode only in the finale of his symphony. While Tepper set to music all nine stanzas of the first version of the ode, Beethoven turned to the 1803 version, used only a selection of its verses, arranged them in a different order, and even changed some words.35 While Tepper’s cantata is a musical expression of Schiller’s romanticism, Beethoven’s symphony is the embodiment of a complex and controversial historical era still full of optimism, in which Schiller’s romanticism is only one of many aspects. In other words, the young Tepper subdued his music to Schiller’s ode, but the mature Beethoven enriched his music with Schiller’s ode.

In his memoirs Tepper wrote ‘I always saw the world as a place where people extend their hands to each other.’ This philosophy of life corresponds to Schiller’s words ‘Seid umschlungen, Millionen!’ Tepper’s cantata is the first serious musical composition of a highly gifted and promising young man and marks his transition from amateurish exercises to professional composition. It clearly reflects the exuberance and optimism of Tepper’s

35. George Grove: Beethoven and his nine symphonies (London, 1896), pp.324–26.


personality. Written and published at the most difficult period of his life – the loss of homeland, loss of family fortune and the destruction of the family, away from home, after his father’s death and after collapse of his dreams about love and happiness with his sweetheart, in misery, without hope for a better future – is still music to joy and about joy, addressed to circles of friends where joy presides.

Unfortunately, for many different reasons, Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson failed to fully develop his great natural talent. In his me moir, he bitterly remarked: ‘In all my endeavours, I went through only half-way and did not reach perfection in anything. [...] I cannot say that I was bad, but I did not become what I might be, and what I had pro-mised.’ But some future historians were kinder to him. Stupel wrote: ‘Tepper was certainly a professionally experienced and talented com poser, who stands above many of his more famous contemporaries. Even today his [...] smooth and precise work can attract listeners by its since rity and melodic freshness.’36 Among Tepper’s modest musical legacy, the cantata To joy holds a special place: this is a beautiful monument to his time, to his youth which was full of joy and sorrows, rich in artistic impressions and music, and crowned with meetings with the two great romantic geniuses of the era – Schiller and Beethoven.

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olga baird is a museum professional and art historian with a particular interest in the Enlightenment. She is preparing a translation of Tepper de Ferguson’s Memoirs.

36. Stupel: ‘Lizeyskii uchitel musyki’.

early settings of the ode to joy: schiller-beethoven-tepper

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