"Ray Bayles" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I thought Beethoven did a lot of "poetic translation" on the Ode to Joy...
>He couldn't make the Schiller work fit the music, so he translated the
>poetry to fit his music.

He only "translated" the work as much as the average opera composer
"translates" the libretto in the process of setting it to music.  For
example, the janissary "Turkish March" section's solo voice is a loose
interpretation of the following stanza:

   Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
   Durch des Himmels pracht'gen Plan
   Laufet, Bruder, eure Bahn
   Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen.

This is converted to the following (as far as I can hear from my recording
- I'll try to obtain a miniature score and check, though that could take
some time given the state of our local libraries)

   Froh, froh, wie seine Sonnen, seine Sonnen fliegen,
   Durch - seine Sonnen fliegen! - Durch des Himmels pracht'gen Plan.
   Laufet, Bruder, eure Bahn, Laufet, Bruder, eure Bahn,
   Freudig wie ein Held zum Siegen, wie ein Held zum siegen,
   Laufet, Bruder, eure Bahn; Laufet, Bruder, eure Bahn -
   Freudig wie ein Held zum Siegen, wie ein Held zum siegen
   Freudig wie ein Held zum Siegen!

Punctuation here is, of course, spurious, and follows the English norm, not
the German rules (which are a bit complex, given that I've only just worked
out the difference between a hyphen and a dash in English!:-).

The remainder of the work is not too difficult to extricate from the text,
although if you have a version of the complete Ode, I think you'll find
that only about half of it is set in the work.

Again, rather like the process undertaken by an opera composer - compare
this to the libretto of Britten's "Midsummer Night's Dream".  This is
merely a cut version of Shakespeare's play, but if you were trying to
follow the opera from the play text, you'd be utterly lost!

Sam Kemp