Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which includes the magnificent "Ode to Joy," premiered on May 7, 1824. We recently passed its bicentennial. The Ninth was greeted as a masterpiece from the outset and continues its vibrant life today. The timeless appeal of Beethoven’s Ninth is a wonderful reminder of what prevails in human life and aspiration, and what is at the very core of our psyches. It defines the best of us and is a touchstone and guiding light for our higher soul, the human journey, and transcendence itself. Beethoven’s joy is a component and near cousin of all-transforming awe, the feeling of being included in, yet dwarfed by, a magnificent larger reality. We can lose ourselves in Beethoven’s joy at the possibilities of the human condition as surely as we lose ourselves in awe looking at a photograph of the whole Earth from space. Both speak to our fundamental unity and equality as human beings.

WETA classical music host James Jacobs says of it at the end of his YouTube podcast:

“For two centuries, we have turned to this work to remind ourselves what it is we really want from civilization, from art, from ourselves. It has outlasted any political use to which it has been put, but its hourlong journey from terrifying depths to euphoric heights is something that speaks to all of us, as we all struggle and strive towards joy.”

Jacobs also writes,

“[L]ike the Declaration of Independence and other Enlightenment relics, it’s a tribute to freedom and joy created by the only people allowed to have freedom and joy [in Western culture at the time—RC], privileged white men. ‘Alle Menschen Werden Brüder’ [‘all men are brothers’—RC] was meant to be taken literally in terms of its gender [and only white men were considered fully human beneficiaries of equality in America at the time—RC]. And yet Beethoven, as a deaf man who had a horrific childhood and multiple health issues who never experienced a true non-transactional relationship with anyone, was hardly the spokesperson for either privilege or joy. But he loved nature and understood his place in the cosmos.”

Just as Beethoven, the American Revolution, and the Enlightenment itself........

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