On days in which I find myself emotionally down, I seek out hope. I seek out joy. As many who have listened to the music of Beethoven, I fell in love with the music of this most irascible genius, this tortured soul, who found himself living in a musician’s living hell, the world of complete deafness. If this man could draw from within himself the joy to compose the great Ninth Symphony, I can draw from his music the joy and the hope to persevere even in the darkest of days.
FREUDE: AN ODE TO BEETHOVEN’S NINTH SYMPHONY
- AN AWAKENING
An awakening,
seventh grade science,
a Bell Lab film, “Our Mr. Sun”
a closeup of the Sun,
a rolling, bright ball of gases,
yellow, orange, reddish colors
exploding, bursting, solar
flares erupting like
a fountain of molten lava
into the darkness of the
surrounding universe.
My class was transfixed
upon the images of
beautiful violence and
explosions, magnetically
drawn into the yellowish
orange and red gases.
But it was not the image
that captivated me.
It was the music.
Orchestra, chorus, rising
in a tidal wave of sound
as brilliant as the image
on the screen, its harmonic
rhythm modulating, rolling,
changing, a harmonic
solar flare that grasped
my heart in such a way
that, long after the film
wrapped itself around
its receiving reel and
the projector shut off,
the music continued to
sound in my inner ear.
Its aural presence
I carry with me through
the remaining classes
of the day, wondering,
“What is it? Who composed it?”
Was it by accident?
A fluke chanced listening
to an unknown classical
music album? Who knows?
But that music, that
orchestral choral music
which I carried with me
for six years, I, suddenly,
encountered again.
I know her name, and
I greet her with the
kind of embrace reserved
only for the most
intimate of lovers.
No longer a mystery,
this stranger in my memory,
I had to know every turn and
shade and characteristic of her,
like an infatuated lover
who maps into tactile memory
the contour of his lover’s body,
the softness and scent
that arises from the
surface of the skin
he gently caresses and kisses.
Finally, after six years,
I know the name of the one,
about whom I have dreamt,
whose voice is etched into
my memory, to be the
most beautiful of all created music.
2. BORN OF BONN
Ludwig Von Beethoven,
Bonn, Germany born, son
of a drunken, shit of a father
who projected upon his son
the hope and celebrity of
another musical child prodigy.
Forced to practice piano
for many hours, late into
the night, beaten bloody
for every wrong note,
every wrong rhythm,
is it any wonder you
developed such a strong
distaste for authority?
Fleeing from a hellish Bonn,
you studied with the musical
minds of your time,
establishing yourself,
a virtuoso pianist, composer
of the future, with some
wanting to thrust upon you
the mantle of the fallen Mozart.
Unlike Haydn, and many other
composers, you disdained
and refused to be indentured
and mastered by church or nobility,
no servant’s entrance for you
who walked through the same
door of the nobility, a move
that had doomed Mozart
to an impoverished death
to be buried among
unknown paupers.
Scorned nobility recognized
the genius you possessed,
supporting your musical
revolution in a class enslaved
world. Napoleon’s revolution
spreading like an infection
across nobility populated Europe,
your “Eroica” symphony
initially dedicated to him
until the truth was revealed,
his name violently scratched out
in the score, when you discovered
the old world order very much alive
and well under a different guise.
Conflicted, fractured family relationships,
Fur Elise, nobility born, stripped
out of your arms, her duty
to family more important
than the love you shared.
Irascible and impatient,
demanding and insulting,
the growing specter of silence,
the nightmare of all musicians,
spreads over your life,
an aural blanket snuffing out
all sound, abruptly ending
your life as a performer.
That which would defeat many
did not end your life,
you turning away from that
outside you, turning instead,
inward, your inner ear hearing the pitches,
the rhythms, the orchestration
which you scratch with quill
and ink onto pieces of manuscript,
hearing that which your
physical ears deny you.
It is in this darkness of silence
your created much of your
greatest music, creating that
which you could never conduct,
that which you would never hear.
In this world of isolating silence,
in which was created this
musical beauty who captivated me,
for whom I longed, for whom I sought,
it has been written that at
that first performance, deaf
to the sound of chorus and orchestra,
unaware that the music had ended,
your contralto soloist gently
turned you to face the standing
audience, applauding and
shouting your acclaim.
At the age of fifty-six years,
you set aside your ear trumpets,
set down your pen and conversation
books, and entered into that
eternal conversation with God,
who loved you into creation.
3. FREUDE
“Freude” (Joy) leaps from the page
of Schiller’s poem, “Ode to Joy”,
cuts through the concert hall.
The bass soloist singing “Freunde!”
(Friends), set aside the words of
hate and violence, put on
“Fruede” (joy)! Is is our
common oneship in the
family of God that must
unite us as people of Freude.
Variations on the Ode to Joy
theme, not that sorry excuse
of a hymn, an abomination
that kills joy, rather than
instill joy. No! but in glorious
layers of melody, tone colors,
the words of Schiller’s poem
leaps off the orchestral score,
inviting, invoking, compelling
the listener to gaze beyond
the human self, gaze beyond
the horizon, to peer beyond
the stars, to reach out
with human hands, touching,
then kissing the face of God.
The language of your music
provided the translation of
Schiller’s German poem,
long before I read its translation.
On the dark, dismal days
of my Sophomore year, I would
sit by the phonograph and listen,
getting new strength, new resolve
to continue, to persevere in
my study of music. I sat,
on the steps of the packed
symphonic hall at which I ushered,
my arms wrapped around my knees,
my eyes closed, listening to the
Freude of your symphony.
And, for days following,
be on a musical high,
more powerful than the
trip of any narcotic, or
acid induced magical mystery tour.
Today, one of those dark days
of later life, facing grim days,
I sit, my ears encased with
sound cancelling headphones,
and put on your Ninth Symphony.
The soloist bass’s voice rings,
the German “Freunde” (Friend) resounds
as it is sung, my hope restored.
My spirit soars as I am drawn
back to the seventh grade science class,
the Bell Lab film and the music.
I reintroduce myself to that
beautiful music beauty
that captured my heart
and in whom I have found
hope, and, yes, Freude.
