Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

I was looking for my passport the other day and found it in the bottom of a bag I hadn't unpacked since I was prepared to evacuate last summer. The bag was full of old journals so of course I had to skim through them. Here are some excerpts from my journal May 31, 2003. Santa Barbara City College Choir and Orchestra had just performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. (The last movement's the huge choral "Ode to Joy"). "Professor Kreitzer always told us to save some of our voice but that's so hard when you want to sing it at the top of your lungs. The ending is so great the choir would applaud every time we finished a run-through." "The night of the Saturday performance came and I was so nervous. I didn't have any solos or anything, I was just super excited." "We had to sit through the first five movements. This was hard as we had to sit on stage and remain pleasant. There was a bass that amused us all as he began to fall asleep and lean further and further forward in his chair. I was afraid he'd fall out of it with a loud thunk. That, or start snoring. We finally got to our cue to stand and the energy started building. It finally got to the choir. I sang with such passion I had to fight back tears. I sang those high notes more solid than ever before. I had written the English translation in my score the day before and I had a fuller understanding of the text. I truly believed everything we were singing. When we stopped singing we didn't move until the orchestra finished. Then, the audience leaped to their feet in applause. It was fabulous."
~Symphony No.9, Op.125 "Choral" Ludwig von Beethoven

"Do you sink before Him, millions? World, do you sense your Creator? Seek him then beyond the stars! He must dwell beyond the stars." ~Beethoven

In a website talking about this work and how Beethoven couldn't hear any of it, it says, "Think about that bitter fact, and then wonder that a man so crossed by fate could still demand a choir to sing rapturously of joy."~Elizabeth Schwarm Glesher

And, Claude Debussy said, "It is the most triumphant example of the molding of an idea to the preconceived form; at each leap forward there is a new delight, without either effort or appearance of repetition; the magical blossoming, so to speak, of a tree whose leaves burst forth simultaneously. Nothing is superfluous in this stupendous work... Beethoven had already written eight symphonies and he determined to surpass himself. I can scarcely see how his success can be questioned."

I hope this makes you want to go listen to it. I know what I'm listening to next.