"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.

In 1785, from the beginning of May till mid-September, he stayed with his publisher, Georg Joachim Göschen, in Leipzig and wrote "An die Freude" along with his play Don Carlos.

[2] Schiller later made some revisions to the poem, which was then republished posthumously in 1808, and it was this latter version that forms the basis for Beethoven's setting.

Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!

Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!

Joy, thou shining spark of God, Daughter of Elysium, With fiery rapture, goddess, We approach thy shrine!

[4] The lines marked with * were revised in the posthumous 1808 edition as follows: The original, later eliminated last stanza reads

Rescue from the chains of tyrants, Magnanimity to the villain too, Hope on the deathbed, Mercy in the high (law) court, Even the dead shall live!

Academic speculation remains as to whether Schiller originally wrote an "Ode to Freedom" (An die Freiheit) and changed it to "To Joy".

[8] The musicologist Alexander Rehding points out that even Bernstein, who used "Freiheit" in two performances in 1989, called it conjecture whether Schiller used "joy" as code for "freedom" and that scholarly consensus holds that there is no factual basis for this myth.