Lessons From Beethoven

How to overcome misery....

Mulling over the topic for my show, I landed upon Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, "Ode to Joy"

Who knows better about putting OUT misery than the maestro himself. He never heard a note of his final symphony. Beethoven was deaf. He had given up playing the piano years and years before he composed the "Ode to Joy." Frustration at hearing sound fade away must've been profound...

And in the complete deep silence where only he could hear his thoughts did he write his Ninth Symphony.

What is Joy? Beethoven postulates... Is it power and dignity he poses through his first movement... Is it playfulness and cheer? The second movement is a blizzard of laughing notes. Is it peace and tranquility? The third movement celebrates like a sunset saying good evening.

No, Beethoven says to all these suggestions.

The fourth movement mows down the roses, the poises, the blizzard of baby's breath and a theme swells from a tiny low voice; perhaps the voice that Beethoven hears in the silence. The familiar theme that we all know as his Ninth grows and develops and dances finally from the choir.

Beethoven in his despairing deafness DEFIES to be a silent miserable soul. Instead, he creates a masterpiece.

What is joy? What is it that Beethoven teaches?

Joy breathes in consciousness... in the ability to think beyond the circumstance.. Beethoven created beyond his deafness, beyond the cruelties from a violent parent, beyond the limits of the common minute... and created himself in a way that eternity can sing his soul's frustrations, his struggles, and his hope and joy.

That.... is living life as an artform.

Listen to my blogtalkradio segment on Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" with special co-host Miss Diva of Dysfunctional Diatribe.

JNET