365 Days of Song Recommendations: Dec 31
This is the 1st in a 3-post series featuring all 3 writers from the #365Songs project. For this concluding song recommendation, we have each written an essay about the same piece of music.
“Ode to Joy” — Ludwig van Beethoven
Music begins with a melody. All music really — even Swedish Death Metal and Philip Glass. And the history of music can be traced back to bone flutes in the Upper Paleolithic. Every known culture in the history of the world has dabbled in music… in melody of some form. Many scholars, somewhat controversially, believe that music predates language. Let’s use that theory to rest on the idea that music is communication. From the Nickelbacks to the Ludwig vans, all intended to convey an idea or an expression, something beyond words. In the case of the former, the takeaway might just be that the artist doesn’t have anything interesting to convey and the music itself acts as a form of self-flagellation. A lovely theory, that.
There’s a reason that simple, timeless melodies like “Ode to Joy” become omnipresent anthems that represent the best that civilization has to offer. This, the prelude to the final movement of Beethoven’s Symphony №9, stands as a monument to the triumph of collaboration and brotherhood over war and desperation.
Beethoven put music to a poem written by Friedrich Schiller called “An die Freude” (from the German: “To Joy”). So much of our conception of these legendary composers leans on notions of them being mad geniuses, penning their compositions in feces on the walls of their rubber rooms. If not lost to stark-raving madness, how else could they write and create something so extraordinary?
And some of them were. Schumann certainly would have been hospitalized with some kind of extreme bipolar disorder, but by and large, a creativity largess doesn’t require mental instability. Unfairly besmirched by his well-documented hearing impairment, Beethoven was first and foremost an idealist that fell in love with higher concepts like morality and the importance of independent thought. He championed the work of philosophers Schiller, von Goethe, and Kant, and “Ode to Joy” represents, more than any other individual movement in his extensive catalog, optimism — most specifically optimism emergent from utter despair.
The 9th was Beethoven’s final completed symphony. Completed later in life, after he’d already gone deaf and struggled through depression and suicidal thoughts, “Ode to Joy” celebrates life on the other side of the deepest dark. №9 doesn’t depict a dramatic clash of themes or ideas, but rather a dialogue among disparate voices — points and counterpoints rather than violent juxtaposition.
I couldn’t think of a more fitting piece of music to celebrate and comment on our moment in time than Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” For many it might be sonic wallpaper, its omnipresence blending with the oeuvre of elevator music. Everything old does when we stop paying attention. We spend less and less time rooted in the now and more time avoiding it. Now requires attention. We, as a collective, prefer distance and anesthesia.
Looking at our own immediate futures, it’s damn near impossible to see the sunlight over the horizon. Every single piece of news portends endless midnight. Ludwig van Beethoven experienced that same loss of self, of comfort; the composer who could not hear music, the beautiful melodies that he composed for the world could no longer be his, the musicians and poets he admired could no longer be heard. Only the deafening voices in his own head that constantly reminded him of that which he’d lost.
Beethoven emerged from that midnight and wrote “Ode to Joy.” If we are to endure the darkness and find the dawn, we need to rediscover our own idealism, to once again believe in thoughts and ideas that we cannot necessarily see or hear. Across the world, “Ode to Joy” has become a protest anthem and a celebration of music, of life. Chinese students broadcast it at Tiananmen Squre. Leonard Berstein conducted a version after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
As a country, as a world, there may be no more necessary piece of music as we look to 2022 as the beyond, the future after a long darkness.
Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss to all the world!
Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving Father.
Are you collapsing, millions?
Do you sense the creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy!
Above stars must He dwell.
As the #365Songs project comes to an end, I encourage you to seek out music — old music, new music and rediscover happiness. Do not gather moss. I’ve enjoyed sharing my thoughts and scars in disguise as song recommendations over these last months. Love and admiration to my good friends in writing, Chris (Preacher) and Mike (Smitty), who brought me on board to do the two things I love most — writing and listening to music. Our friendship goes back to one night in a Dublin pub many, many years ago when we had six (seven?) pints each and talked about these very things with perfect lucidity until damn near dawn. We might not publish our thoughts as often in 2022… but stay hopeful, stay in the moment, and celebrate good music wherever it is found.
The complete #365Songs playlist is here:
