Beethoven Number Nine

an excerpt from chapter 18 of King of Soul

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondem laβt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere! While the widening gyre of anarchy was roaring so blatantly through Altamont, another thing altogether was happening in the hub of the heartland, that humongous, meat-packin’ Windy City on western shore of Lake Michigan. In a concert hall on Michigan Avenue, a mere stone’s throw from the site where, last year, Mayor Daley’s legion of policemen had taught the boomer upstarts a thing or two about how his version of order would be enforced in the city of Chicago, a theater-full of listeners sat expectantly. They were awaiting the arrival of Ludwig Von Beethoven. His scribbled notes upon a 5- lined manuscript would soon provide the roadmap to guide them through an extraordinary experience, an o’erleaping of the bounds of time and space. At 8:07, as if by clockwork, Conductor Riccardo Ormando entered the hall from the wings, welcomed enthusiastically in a wave of applause. Now the time of his orchestra’s purple mountains’ majesty of preparation would yield forth the fruited plains of actual, musical delight. Thus would their collective soundings propel this eager audience through an exploration of rock music as it had been performed a century and a half earlier. The great concert hall came to an absolute silence when Ormando turned his back on the audience. He lifted the baton. Softly, Sustenuto Strings sounded the beginning of an event like no other, and yet exactly the same as it had always been.

Something, something very fine was about to happen, something tuned and prepared, painstakingly written, performed through ages, rehearsed again and again and again and, and then again, it began. Flutes, woodwinds joined in harmonious agreement that, yes, something here should happen, but it would not begin too soon, not too hastily. Let it develop. A brief discordant note, reminiscent of their prior tuning, then the sonorous appearance of Pianissimo notes over strong tremolos. With a wave of his hand, Riccardo gave the Horns permission to so sedately make their entrance. Allegro rhythm took hold of their soundings. Ensemble musings melted into congruous agreements. Along the way, Flutes, French horns, Oboes, Clarinets, Bassoons, Trumpets—all contributed to a mounting statement of masterful musical expectation; carefully formed a hundred and fifty-four years ago. The bundle of sound was delivered precisely, within a sonata form of melded anticipations and fortissimo fulfillments, interspersed with overlapping phrases, strings and horns alternating on descents; Violins ascending pyrrhically to the heights of their prepared assents. Passion stretched between a wooden frame, tensioned with pegs from skillful instrument-makers long dead and gone, as was the composer himself. Air, vibrating. Atmospheric molecules activated in energetic creation, rushing now through tubes of brass, squeezing ‘tween reeds of vibrating resistance. This rarified air, dispensed by accomplished lips of love, entrained through hearts of gold, it all blew through, sounding forth, offering delicate harmonies and bold crescendos intended to lift the human heart to heights of reflective joy, joy that is perhaps not fully appreciated until the depths of despair have been debilitated, and the heights of achievement have been laid out like sacrifices upon the altar of endeavor and the crucible of time. Listen to the scene on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkj0TeZeZuo%20">