Gustav Klimt · Beethoven frieze · final choir
"That kiss to the whole world" the final chorus of the Beethoven Frieze
After the Hostile Forces, the Beethoven Frieze ends in a vision of consolation: the arts lead towards an ideal kingdom, the choir sings joy, and an embracing couple gives a visible form to Schiller's verse taken up by Beethoven.
The short answer
The finale transforms the quest for happiness into a musical image
"That kiss to the whole world" designates the last moment of the Beethoven frieze by Gustav Klimt: a female choir, frontal and golden, frames the embrace of a naked couple. The passage echoes the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and theOde to joy by Friedrich Schiller.
In the frieze, this scene does not happen at random. It comes after human suffering, the knight, Typhaeus, the Gorgons, illness, madness, death and temptations. Happiness is therefore not presented as a pleasant setting: it is the exit from a crossing.
The final chorus is also an aesthetic statement. For Klimt and the Viennese Secession, art can bring together painting, architecture, music, poetry and decoration into a total experience.
I · Analysis of the finale
The scene no longer tells the story of the fight: it shows the agreement found
In the right wall, Klimt abandons the disturbing density of the central panel. Bodies become vertical, faces repeat, the surface becomes more rhythmic. We no longer look at a threat: we look at a cadence.
The desire for happiness is appeased
The composition leads towards the final chorus: the female figures almost become notes, placed in a frieze, repeated, slightly differentiated.
Poetry and the arts
Before the final embrace, the arts guide humanity towards an ideal space: salvation comes through an aesthetic experience.
The rhythm
The choir works by repetition: heads, bodies, vertical lines and patterns create a musical sensation.
Frontality
The figures look or appear from the front. The spectator is not only a witness: he is placed in front of a sort of ceremony.
Gold
Gold material is not a gratuitous decorative luxury. It signals entry into another, almost sacred kingdom.
II · The choir of paradise
Beethoven's finale becomes a wall of voices
Klimt doesn't paint musicians. He paints what a collective voice could be: a band of figures that holds the space, repeats the facial motif, and transforms the painting into silent singing.
The joy, the divine spark, the kiss given to the whole world: Klimt condenses these ideas into an image of union.
Reading the finale of the frieze| Element | In music | In Klimt's image |
|---|---|---|
| Choral finale | The Ninth Symphony ends with a collective and exalted voice. | Klimt gives the choir a frontal, repeated, almost monumental presence. |
| Ode to joy | Schiller's text celebrates brotherhood, joy and common momentum. | The frieze transforms the idea into a visual community: faces, bodies and gold. |
| Universal kiss | The verse calls for a gesture addressed to everyone, beyond the individual couple. | The final embrace becomes symbol: it's not just two bodies, it's the agreement of the world. |
III · The embracing couple
The kiss of the frieze already announces the great golden Klimt
The embrace of the Beethoven Frieze precedes Klimt's famous images of couples and golden figures. It does not yet have the isolated shape of the Kiss from 1907 -1908, but she already carries the idea: love as closure, refuge, fusion and total image.
A couple
The gesture is intimate, but placed in front of the choir, it becomes public, almost cosmic.
A fence
The embrace closes the narrative after fear, dangerous desire, and hostile powers.
A symbol
In Klimt, the kiss is never just narrative: it absorbs bodies in the setting.
The Kiss
A few years later, Klimt isolated the couple and carried the idea of a golden embrace in his most famous image.
IV · Place in the frieze
The finale is only powerful because it comes after the test
The Beethoven Friesland cannot be understood as a series of decorative images. It is a journey: desire for happiness, struggle, hostile forces, appeasement in the arts, choir and final union.
The aspiration for happiness
Suffering humanity makes the request. The story begins with a lack.
Hostile Forces
Typhaeus, the Gorgons and the figures of fear block the passage to joy.
Appeasement
The answer is not a military victory: it involves poetry, the arts and communion.
To remember: the final chorus does not erase the Hostile Forces. He answers them. It is because Klimt painted fear and desire as obstacles that the final embrace takes on an almost sacred force.
V · Enriched gallery
Images to look at around the final choir
These images place the finale in the complete cycle, in the music at Klimt, then in the real places of Vienna where we can understand the frieze as an experience.
A story on three walls
The finale benefits from being seen overall: it is the visual conclusion of a journey and not a separate scene.
Floating geniuses
The early air movement is already preparing the idea of a desire seeking its resolution.
Study for the frieze
The line prepares the repetition of faces and the ceremonial calm of final figures.
Represent sound
In Klimt, music often becomes figure, rhythm, allegory and decorative surface.
VI · Real places
See the final choir in its Viennese setting
The Beethoven Frieze is visible in the Secession building in Vienna, on permanent loan from Belvedere. The location counts: this finale speaks as much about architecture, music and spectator movement as it does about painting.
The Secession
The building is the historic setting of the frieze. Its golden dome announces the secessionist ideal of total work.
The Belvedere
The Belvedere has the frieze, permanently exposed to the Secession in a dedicated room.
The Klimt-Villa
To extend the route, the workshop recalls the slow preparation drawn up of Klimt's large decorations.
Shop
Extend the final chorus: Beethoven frieze, music and golden Klimt
The final choir naturally dialogues with the Frise Beethoven collection, Klimt's paintings linked to kissing, music, gold and large Viennese decorations.
Sources
Sources used
Museum and documentary sources to check the program of the frieze, the link with Beethoven and Schiller, the final choir, the entwined couple and the place of conservation.
Beethoven Frieze
Official presentation of the frieze, the 1902 exhibition and the quote linked to the Ninth Symphony.
Google Arts/BelvedereThe Arts, Paradise Choir and Embracing
Final panel notice: arts, choir of paradise, embrace and direct reference to Beethoven.
Google Arts/SecessionBeethoven Frieze
Complete account of the frieze and reading of the kiss as the culmination of the cycle.
Leopold MuseumStudy for the embracing couple
Notice on the couple's preparatory drawings for "This Kiss to the Whole World".
Khan AcademyBeethoven Frieze
Educational reading of the frieze as a symbolist and secessionist work.
Wikimedia CommonsSecession, real photo
Photograph of the building where the frieze is exhibited in Vienna.
Frequently asked questions
Understand the final chorus
What does "This kiss to the whole world" mean?
The expression refers to the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and theOde to joy from Schiller. In the frieze, Klimt translates it as a couple embracing in front of a choir of female figures.
Where is this passage in the Beethoven Frieze?
It is located on the right wall, at the end of the route. It succeeds the Hostile Forces of the central wall and represents the appeasement of the desire for happiness through the arts.
Is this the same kiss as the painting The Kiss?
No. The final chorus dates from 1901 -1902, while The Kiss was painted in 1907 -1908. But the theme of the wrapped couple, gold and union clearly announces the large golden painting.
Why is there a choir in a painting?
Because the frieze dialogues with Beethoven. Klimt does not paint sound literally: he transforms music into visual rhythm, repetition of figures and decorative ceremony.
Where to see the final chorus today?
The Beethoven Friesland is visible in the Secession building in Vienna, on permanent loan from Belvedere.
In the final chorus, Klimt not only paints a couple: he gives substance to the idea that art can reconcile desire, joy and the world.
After Typhaeus and the Gorgons, the final kiss is not a decorative sweetness: it is the luminous response of the frieze.
Explore the Beethoven Frieze
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