Ode to Joy

I recently went to hear Beethoven's Ninth Symphony: The symphony of symphonies, the soundtrack of human rights.

On a lark, I bought tickets to hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra a few weekends ago. I think I snagged the last two tickets available for the last show.

For a moment, I regretted being inside an auditorium when the weather was in all its autumnal glory. I could not think of a more perfect fall day when morning chill gave way to sun-kissed afternoon warmth. But, I have no regrets. For it was Ludwig Van Beethoven. And the Ninth. I needed joy.

I thank my schooling in Manchester, England, for my introduction to Western classical music. I learned to play violin and learned about the works of Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and of course, Beethoven. That was more than a half century ago and my memories of those days grow dim. But I do very clearly recall the first time I heard Beethoven’s Ninth at a Christmas concert in downtown Didsbury, the Manchester neighborhood where we lived. I was only 10 or 11 and did not understand the significance of Beethoven’s masterpiece but something stirred deep inside. Even at that young age, I could tell that this was more than music. It was, monumental, spiritual, all-encompassing. It was the symphony of symphonies. It took me to another realm.

Later in college, I took up playing the violin once again and enrolled in a class at Florida State University that explored the great composers. It was only then that I began to understand the power of Beethoven’s work. That he only composed nine symphonies in his lifetime. That he completed his last in 1824. By then, he was deaf, ill, politically disappointed and exhausted by a world that in his eyes, failed to live up to its ideals. But he still believed — fiercely, stubbornly — in the Enlightenment promise that every human being has equal worth. The Ninth would become his testament to that belief.

That he wrote a symphony that exceeded the boundaries of Western classical music without being able to hear a single note is extraordinary. And yet, the Ninth is extraordinary in so many ways.

It was the first symphony to include a full choral movement, which, in its time was shocking to audiences and is now its most famous part: Ode to Joy. Beethoven adapted his friend Friederich Schiller’s poem and emphasized its core message of universal brotherhood, joy as a sacred force, human unity and triumph over suffering. That all men are brothers forms the emotional and moral center of the symphony. I like to think that long before the concept of “human rights” even existed, Beethoven had written its soundtrack.

The Ninth was a massive put down of the nobility of Beethoven’s day, incendiary to the very people who came to hear his music. But ultimately, it became a symbol for human rights and social progress. It remains the anthem of the European Union and has been played in moments of great political change and historic revelry. Chinese students aired Ode to Joy in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations. That same year, Leonard Bernstein conducted the symphony as “Ode to Freedom” to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It is undeniably evocative; music that brings tears to one’s eyes. As it surely did for both me and my friend Jan, as we sat in the concert hall on that recent Sunday afternoon.

I hear so much hope in the Ninth. And the possibility of renewal. We need a good dose of both in these uncertain times we are navigating, when darkness seems pervasive. Perhaps that’s why I bought those last two tickets to hear the ASO perform the Ninth. For one afternoon at least, my heart was lifted from darkness and got gloriously consumed by the power of an amazing piece of art.