Czech President says Arnold Schoenberg’s cacophony would be more suitable EU anthem

Czech President Václav Klaus has criticized the choice of Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as the EU anthem, saying that it was a false symbol of artificial brotherhood, Mladá fronta Dnes writes in its Saturday edition. In a speech made at the Bertelsmann Foundation in Berlin last Wednesday Mr. Klaus said that Europe needed to respect its diversity in which case he would deem Arnold Schoenberg’s cacophony a more appropriate symbol of the EU.