Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

This is the one. If there is a greater, grander achievement by the human race I do not know about it and I’ll bet you don’t, either. Everything about us, from philosophy and literature to science and medicine, has its good and bad components, yin and yang, unintended consequences. This work and this work alone is one of ours- a flawed, brilliant, troubled, aspiring person- reaching the ultimate potential. All that is wonderful about being alive is in the bars and scales of this piece, and its strength is such that it does not let you block it out. Try. Wean yourself off popular music’s 5-minute (maybe) length and give yourself an hour to realize what we are capable of.

I won’t say it starts off slow, but it does begin slower than it ends. There’s a pulse and excitement to the rhythm, but it is steady and insistent. The ebb and flow is with a beat that is almost constant (keep in mind these are purely my nonmusician ways of describing the sounds I hear…a musician will probably have a different and more valid interpretation; I can only describe, not explain).

The first three movements are like this, purely instrumental, and then they end with the pivotal theme, the most incredible moment of artistic expression we will ever know. The singers begin immediately afterwards, and for twenty minutes they bring art to its highest level, taking that final theme and expanding it, enlarging it with the voices of women and men until I and I presume everyone else who has listened can only be amazed that anyone was gifted so much (or so far gone) that they could kidnap the heart of God.

This music seeps in your pores, courses in you like it’s the blood in your veins and then erupts inside you. It is overpowering. Yes, the vocal chorus is in German and if you don’t speak German you may not understand a single word, but it will not matter. In fact, it may help your imagination and take it places it has not been before. Trust me, this once if never again. Beethoven’s Ninth is the first- maybe only- exploit I would hold up to the universe as proof positive that the species crawling over the magnificent planet earth like a bunch of ants was not a mistake.