The premiere in 1882 of the Ninth Symphony by the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) at the Teatro Principal in Madrid marked a significant historical and musical milestone for the history of Spanish symphonic music. Until then, the reception of the great German composer in Spain had been limited since the 1840s to individual fragments of certain symphonies, and it was only in 1866 that the first complete symphony was heard, performed by the orchestra of the Concert Society. It is necessary, therefore, to verify the causes that contributed to such a late reception of Beethoven’s symphonic masterpieces, among which the absence of a symphonic tradition, the non-existence of professional orchestras until the creation of the Concert Society in 1866, and the lack of identification of the Spanish public with the Germanic symphonic legacy stand out.