Ode To Joy

Main Entry: Schil·ler

Function: biographical name
Pronunciation: 'shi-l&r
(Johann Christoph) Friedrich von 1759-1805 German poet & dramatist; regarded as second only to Goethe in German literature and as first among German dramatists; renowned especially for The Robbers, Wallenstein, William Tell, etc.

Odd for the dictionary to omit this poet's poem Ode To Joy the words of which Beethoven supplies his enormous choir in his Ninth Symphony, the Chorale.  You know, the two hour (?) work that is the anthem of The United Nations.  Luckily the 'Ode' is non-specific as to denomination, or even religion, so it is universally admired, loved, and frequently performed.

The year of the second Olympics to be held in Los Angeles, 1984, was the year my two younger brothers visited me from Australia, thetwo brothers born in Australia. I had been born eight years earlier in California. During dinner my oldest brother, who unknown to me at the time knew he would soon die, blurted out at dinner that he never cared for Beethoven. He was a school principal in Australia. I have no idea why he launched into his non-Beethoven music preferences. At a loss for how to reply I noted that The Chorale by Beethoven had been adopted by the UN. It is a point of pride, or used to be, for the residents of the former penal colony to eschew culture and the arts. For example, Australia's most famous poem, The Man From Snowy River is about capturing an escaped race horse, an animal that in real life had probably been a big pony.   

Even if a listener to Beethoven's 9th has perfect German it's unlikely that he'd understand a single word sung by the choir. The most thrilling sections sound as if they are being sung by over one thousand children blessed with angelic soprano voices. Since the composer was struggling with onrushing deafness at the time of composition I kinda doubt he cared whether the actual words were understood: it was the music pure and simple that carried his heart. Of the four major parts of the work, so numbered by my CD version, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti conductor, 1988, it is only the last, section #4, that is sung. Presumably the major content of this section is expressions of "Joy." Yes, it is indubitably joyfull.  Early sections seem to deal with varying kinds of struggle. Can we assume the overall structure is about how Joy can triumph over intense struggle, showing that the stuggle was worth the effort? Let's hope the UN makes that thesis come to life. At present "struggle" is too mild a word to characterize our international, ongoing ghastly predicaments.

A funny, cute, odd, touching, piece of music recording history is that the engineers who created the first CD had as their aim to make a single disc on which could be placed Beethoven's entire 9th Symphony. They succeeded!

If I make this any longer this isn't going to get read is it? A grim AOL writer's boards female school teacher, with a screen name I forget, but it's something like ChockFullofNutsQPD, opined that I must make an outline before I leave any of my writing anywhere other than the toilet. Well, that sounds too much like hard work. I'm lazy.

But in age I am truly enthralled by Beethoven's intense desire to express for our pleasure his many transports of Joy. It is known that near the end of his life at the conclusion of conducting one of his works he had to be physically turned around so he could at least see, even if not hear, the thunderous waves of applause by the now standing audience. 

Next I might try to isolate the many different methods by which Beethoven 'talks' to us. I can't read music so I'll have to do it by crude methods. Conversation is one method. A short 'statement' will be made by certain instruments, then the same statement will be repeated by different instruments, sort of in appreciation or in acknowledgement: perhaps a variation will add an additional feeling. So, one might daringly assume, "Joy" comes in part from conversation!

Barry