Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) in the context of "Common practice period"

Secular music and sacred music were the two main genres of Western music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance era. The oldest written examples of secular music are songs with Latin lyrics. However, many secular songs were sung in the vernacular language, unlike the sacred songs that followed the Latin language of the Church, which is not to say there are not secular songs in Latin or not secular songs that are religious in theme.

In the Middle Ages, and even through the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, any music that was not commissioned by the Catholic Church (or, later, a Protestant church) for liturgical use was and still is considered "secular music." Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) (commonly called "Ode to Joy") and Messiah (Handel) are both examples of secular music because, despite being wholly and innately religious in theme, they were not commissioned by any church or for use in any religion's liturgy. Symphony No. 9 was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London for theater performance, not by the Catholic Church, the Church of England, or any other church and not for liturgical use. Likewise, "Messiah (Handel) was commissioned by the Duke of Devonshire to be performed in Dublin theaters for a series of charity concerts, not by the Catholic Church or any other church and not for liturgical use. So, while "secular" today is often taken to mean non-religious in any way, when it refers to music from the Middle Ages through as late as the 19th century, music with a religious theme may be and very often is "secular music" for the simple fact that it was not written on behalf of any commissioning church or for liturgical use, meaning "secular" does not indicate that it is thematically non-religious but that it is non-religious vis-à-vis a religious organization (i.e., the Church) did not commission its creation, sacred music being definitively music commissioned by the Church for liturgical use, for use by the Church in the Church's established rituals, the Church's ceremonies, and the Church's forms of worship, and any and all other music (i.e., music not fitting that strict definition) being secular music, no matter how religiously themed or gloriously worshipful of God it may be. A caveat: while these definitions of sacred music and secular music still hold true today when referring to such music from the past, they tend not to still hold true today for more modern music as any modern song that is themed in religious worship, regardless of if any church commissioned it or uses it in its liturgy, is not considered secular music, like Christian rock is not considered secular music today, but if it were somehow packed up and sent back to the 1500s, it would be considered secular music today because it would have been considered secular music back in the 1500s because of not being commission by the Church for liturgical use but by the artists themselves, or their labels, for their own personal or professional use and so would have come down through history to today as secular music.

The European Anthem or Anthem of Europe, also known as Ode to Joy, is a piece of instrumental music adapted from the prelude of the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony composed in 1823, originally set to words adapted from Friedrich Schiller's 1785 poem "Ode to Joy". In 1972, the Council of Europe adopted it as an anthem to represent Europe, and later in 1985 it was also adopted by the European Union.

Its purpose is to honour shared European values. The EU describes it as expressing the ideals of freedom, peace and solidarity. The anthem is played on official occasions such as political or civil events.

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section (violin, viola, cello, and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or Mahler's Second Symphony).

"Ode to Joy" (German: "An die Freude" [an diː ˈfʁɔʏdə]) is an ode written in the summer of 1785 by the German poet, playwright, and historian Friedrich Schiller. It was published the following year in the German magazine Thalia. In 1808, a slightly revised version changed two lines of the first stanza and omitted the last stanza.

"Ode to Joy" is best known for its use by Ludwig van Beethoven in the final (fourth) movement of his Ninth Symphony, completed in 1824. Beethoven's text is not based entirely on Schiller's poem, and it introduces a few new sections. Beethoven's melody, but not Schiller's text, was adopted as the "Anthem of Europe" by the Council of Europe in 1972 and later by the European Union. Rhodesia's national anthem from 1974 until 1979, "Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia", also used Beethoven's melody.

A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, and sometimes solo vocalists that, in its internal workings and overall musical architecture, adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when he described his Roméo et Juliette as such in his five-paragraph introduction to that work. The direct antecedent for the choral symphony is Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Beethoven's Ninth incorporates part of the ode An die Freude ("Ode to Joy"), a poem by Friedrich Schiller, with text sung by soloists and chorus in the last movement. It is the first example of a major composer's use of the human voice on the same level as instruments in a symphony.

A few 19th-century composers, notably Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt, followed Beethoven in producing choral symphonic works. Notable works in the genre were produced in the 20th century by Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich, among others. The final years of the 20th century and the opening of the 21st century have seen several new works in this genre, among them compositions by Mikis Theodorakis, Peter Maxwell Davies, Tan Dun, Philip Glass, Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki, William Bolcom and Robert Strassburg.