An Ode to An Ode to Joy

Earlier this year, I spent a wonderful week as a guest soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. My first day in town, after rehearsing my concerto with the orchestra, I went out into the hall to listen to the rest of their rehearsal, devoted to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. 

It goes without saying that the orchestra brought all the intensity and depth of their legendary “Philadelphia Sound” to the piece, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s openhearted and unfiltered energy pushing Beethoven’s musical revolution to its explosive limits. I sat transfixed at the edge of my seat. And then, near the top of the fourth movement, during the tense, mysterious build-up to the baritone soloist’s electrifying “O Freunde” entrance, Yannick put down his baton and stopped the orchestra. 

Lara performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra

Pete Cecchia

Beethoven’s famous “Ode to Joy” is one of the most recognizable and enduring melodies in all of music. Fifteen unforgettable notes in stepwise motion - the hardest-won pure and perfect simplicity. 

How many times had the Philadelphians played this music? Enough to play it blindfolded and backwards and sideways. But Yannick wanted to consider it anew. He spoke of the countless performances of this piece, from its triumphant premiere in 1824, when Beethoven, completely deaf, kept conducting even after the music had stopped until one of the singers gently turned him around to face the ecstatic, roaring crowd. Yannick spoke of this music’s journey across two centuries, marking the world’s turns through tragedy and triumph. 

“Ode to Joy” was co-opted as a symbol of German supremacy under the Nazi regime. During China's Cultural Revolution, the piece became a secret symbol of hope, defiance, and universal brotherhood. It represented peace among nations as the official anthem of the Council of Europe in 1972; it celebrated reunion in 1989 at the fall of the Berlin Wall. In ‘98, Seiji Ozawa brought the piece to the Winter Olympics in Japan, with six different choirs simultaneously singing from Japan, Germany, South Africa, China, the United States, and Australia - a reflection of global joy and brotherhood. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Philadelphia Orchestra

Pete Checchia

This piece represents the extremes of human experience. “And today,” Yannick said, “today, I want this music to bring us peace.” He asked for an “Ode to Joy” that would bring respite and refuge in our time of global conflict and chaos. A gentle ode that would celebrate the quiet, radical power of joy, that would take us to the tender heart of Beethoven’s complicated, conflicted, resilient humanity.

Beethoven would be turning 255 years old this month. He was born in 1770, into a world of Enlightenment and innovation, revolution and transformation. When he was six years old, a new nation was founded across the ocean, the American experiment launched with the signing of our Declaration of Independence. At 19, he witnessed Europe forever changed as the Storming of the Bastille opened the floodgates to decades of revolution and war across the continent and its colonies. In his late thirties, as Napoleon’s army bombarded the city of Vienna, Beethoven, terrorized and hiding in his brother’s basement, was moved to produce one of his greatest works, the Emperor concerto. His personal life was deeply and constantly troubled, from an abusive childhood to struggles with depression, poverty, isolation, chronic physical illness, and finally, his descent into deafness.

And despite all that, or because of it, his music -  radical, revolutionary, gloriously messy, unashamedly outside-of-the-lines, raw and real and beyond its time - finds us whenever and wherever we need it. It meets us in our own chaos and conflict, in our own pain and struggle. It reminds us to insist on joy. The miracle of Beethoven’s music, and of all the music and art that endures and remains essential for centuries, is that it serves to remind us of our own humanity - our frailty, our strength, our darkness and our light. 

255 years, and Beethoven is still so present, and so needed. Perhaps it’s worth remembering, as we prepare to celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of our still-young country, born when Beethoven was just a child with all his music ahead of him, that among us today, somewhere on this earth, is certainly another Beethoven. 

A child who will take the pain and confusion of our own struggling world and make of it something powerful and beautiful, something that will offer comfort and quiet, centuries from now, in troubled times yet to come. An ode to joy.