The Drop and the River

“We can’t hear the sopranos!”

“You don’t need to. Keep your eyes on me and follow my cues.”

He looks down at the score, then signals the sopranos entry. He beckons the brass, then commands the timpani. Our conductor is a thousand-armed bodhisattva, plucking his instrument of sixty musicians and eighty choir members impeccably.

“Freude, schoener Goetterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium…”

To my own ears, this sounds cacophonous. But as instructed, I keep my eyes on him. I see him displeased. He lowers his hands. The hundred and forty orchestra members fall apart in varying delays like released marionette limbs.

“One of the baritones is out of tune,” he protests.

No one pleads guilty.

“Ok, let’s hear the baritones only.”

“Freude, schoener Goetterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium…”

“You,” he points to me. “Sing it alone.”

I sing it alone.

“Stop, stop, stop. Goetterfunken has four syllables in it, each a tone lower than the previous syllable. Repeat after me: Goe-tter-fun-ken.”

“Goe-tter-fun-ken.”

“Good. Sing it again.”

I sing it again.

“Good. Now let’s resume from the entry of the sopranos.”

“Freude, schoener Goetterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium…”

His face reveals the slightest smile. He is pleased. I am relieved. The river of Beethoven’s Ninth flows on. I am a drop in this river, connected to the other drops through the conductor’s gaze. Harmony means drops disappearing by merging into the whole. A drop that distinguishes itself sins against the river and creates cacophony.