smuted into gifts of peace and happiness.
Beethoven loved his kind. Love for humanity, pity for its misfortunes,
hope for its final deliverance, largely occupied his mind. With scarcely
an exception Beethoven's works end happily. Among the sketches of the
last movement of the Mass in D, he makes the memorandum, "Staerke der
Gesinnungen des innern Friedens. Ueber alles ... Sieg." (Strengthen the
conviction of inward peace. Above all--Victory). The effect of the
Choral Finale is that of an outburst of joy at deliverance, a
celebration of victory. It is as if Beethoven, with prophetic eye, had
been able to pierce the future and foresee a golden age for humanity, an
age where altruism was to bring about cessation from strife, and where
happiness was to be general. Such happiness as is here celebrated in the
Ode to Joy, can indeed, only exist in the world through altruism.
Pity,[B] that sentiment which allies man to the divine, comes first.
From this proceeds love, and through these and by these only is
happiness possible. This was the gist of Beethoven's thought. He had
occupied himself much with sociological questions all his life, always
taking the part of the oppressed.

[B] The German rendering _Mitleid_ has a higher significance than its
English equivalent. Literally it means sharing the sorrow of the
afflicted one. It may be said in passing that this sentiment is the
central idea in Parsifal.

Schindler, who was almost constantly with Beethoven at this time, tells
of the difficulty the master experienced in finding a suitable way of
introducing the choral part. He finally hit upon the naive device of
adding words of his own in the form of a recitative, which first appears
in the sketch-book as, "Let us sing the immortal Schiller's Song,
'Freude schoener Goetterfunken.'" This was afterward changed to the much
better form as now appears, "O Freunde, nicht diese Toene! sondern lasst
uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere." (O friends, not these
tones. Let us sing a strain more cheerful, more joyous.)

The whole character and design of the Ode to Joy will be better
apprehended when it is stated that it is in reality an Ode to Freedom.
With its revolutionary spirit Beethoven was entirely in accord. Already
in his twenty-third year he contemplated setting it to music. Later, in
the note-book of 1812, the first line of the poem appears, in connection
with a scheme for an overture. It is worthy of remark that the Sym