Beethoven's Ninth

As any devoted reader of Peanuts knows, yesterday was Ludwig Van Beethoven's birthday (Schroeder made sure all the kids knew how many shopping days were left). To honor the occasion, I put on my CD of the most sublime music ever written, his Ninth Symphony. I poured myself three fingers of tequila and listened, coming close to bursting into tears.

I know almost nothing about classical music, but I know what I like. I have always responded most to the muscularity of Beethoven's work, and the Ninth Symphony is both muscular but also heartbreakingly beautiful. I suppose the first time I ever heard of it, at least parts of it, was when ABC used to carry the Olympic Games and at the end of them would play a highlight reel scored to the first portion of the fourth movement, the theme that is familiar to most, the "Ode to Joy."

Beethoven took about six years to write it, and he was stone deaf at the time, an accomplishment that is too mind-boggling to consider. It premiered in Vienna in 1824, and would be his last symphony. Beethoven conducted, but the musical director told the musicians to ignore him (he was deaf, after all). At the conclusion of the symphony he was turned around to see the enthusiastic crowd, who gave him a standing ovation.

The first movement, a sonata, begins as if the orchestra were tuning up, and then the main theme enters, sounding like some waking behemoth, yawning and stretching. The second movement is a scherzo that is familiar to many (it was included in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange--Alex DeBarge loved Ludwig Van!) and is impish in nature. It includes lots of tympani and a repeating rhythm that leads one to think of mischief-making.

I used to think the third movement was dull. I remember talking about it with my friend Nick (now deceased, bless him) who said something like, "Ah, the underrated third movement!" He's right, it is underrated. It's quite and meditative, and is the music to be borne on by angels' wings.

Finally comes the fourth movement, which is like a mini-symphony itself, with four distinct sections. It starts like someone bursting into a room to bear important news, then settles down and breaks into the theme, played by cellos so low you have to strain to hear it. Slowly more instruments are added, and we get the full effect, in my mind the most serene melody ever written. Then the voices kick in.

The Ninth was the first symphony to use voices. The text is the "Ode to Joy," a poem by Friedrich Schiller. This was Beethoven's attempt to create a musical representation of universal brotherhood. I think it goes beyond that--the music is a representation of the bliss of being alive. Soloists begin the choral portion, but when the full choir kicks in with "Freude!" (Joy) a person can get chills.

The poem doesn't sound great in English:

Joy, beautiful spark of gods
Daughter of Elysium
We enter drunk with fire,
Heavenly one, your sanctuary!

And so on. But when sung in the original German by a choir it grabs you by the throat.

The symphony is a long one, over 70 minutes. There is lore that it was the length of this symphony that determined how much information can be contained on any one compact disc. Supposedly the creators wanted to make sure that Beethoven's Ninth could fit on one disc, and designed it accordingly. We may have Ludwig Van to thank for the size of CDs.