Thoughts of a symphony to succeed the Symphonies in A and F major (Nos. 7 and 8), were in the composer’s mind while he was making sketches for those two works in 1812; but the memoranda there found tell us only in what key the new symphony was to be; they are mere verbal notes: “2nd Sinfonie, D minor” and “Sinfonie in D minor--3rd Sinfonie.” A fugue-theme, identical, so far as the first three measures go, with that of the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, presented itself to him and was imprisoned in his note-book in 1815, being recorded among the sketches for the Sonata for Pianoforte and Violoncello in D, Op. 102, No. 2.[107] There is another sketch with a note[108] to show that Beethoven was thinking of a new symphony at the time; but the sketch cannot be associated with the Ninth Symphony, the composition of which really began when the beginning of the first movement was sketched. Of this fragments are found on loose leaves belonging to the year 1817. By the end of that year and the beginning of 1818 (presumably from September to May) extended sketches of the movement were made. The principal subject is definitively fixed, but the subsidiary material is still missing. The fugue-theme of 1817 is assigned to the third movement. There is no suggestion of the use of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” but a plain intimation of an instrumental finale. In 1818 a plan is outlined for the introduction of voices into the slow movement of a symphony which is to follow the “Sinfonie in D.” It is as follows: _Adagio Cantique._ Pious song in a symphony in the ancient modes--Lord God we praise Thee--alleluia--either alone or as introduction to a fugue. The whole 2nd sinfonie might be characterized in this manner in which case the vocal parts would enter in the last movement or already in the Adagio. The violins, etc., of the orchestra to be increased tenfold in the last movement. Or the Adagio might be repeated in some manner in the last movement, in which case the vocal parts would enter gradually--in the text of the Adagio Greek myth, _Cantique Ecclesiastique_--in the Allegro feast of Bachus [_sic_].