Daughter of Elysium
Now Playing: Awe. Just echoes of awe.
Just. Heard. Beethoven's 9th. Live.

What a thing that was. Goosebumps in waves. Seeing Beethoven's last symphony performed was a bit like watching Return of the King for the first time. It's big, loud, and has at least one too many climaxes, but damn that stufff makes you cry. You know exactly what's coming, and yet when it does come it floors you. It was one of those moments when you realize why cliches have become cliches. And to think that Beethoven was deaf when he wrote that.

This was the Yale Symphony Orchestra, the Yale Glee Club, and four very talented professional vocalists. It cost five dollars. Five dollars for a little glimmer of heaven!

I can't imagine what the very first performance of this must have been like. I mean, this was the first time the human voice had been used like the other instruments in a symphony. And it was crazy! And long! And staggering. The first three movements, while containing their own experimental components, must have done little to prepare that first audience for the emotional explosion of the fourth. Beethoven (and Mozart as well) to me is proof that there is something in this cosmos that is simply beyond our grasp except in the rarest of moments. It's just plain magical.

(Fact: In order that listeners could enjoy the entire work in one sitting, the 74-minute 9th Symphony was used to set the standard capacity for a compact disc.)

My friend was waxing poetic about this: "It's like, when you think about the human mind and the ability to write music, and on top of that the ability to build these beautiful instruments, and the fact that all people can and do make this sublime thing called music...you wonder how people can ever hate one another."

"All people become brothers where your gentle wing alights."

If only.

I think I've redeemed myself from the fact that last night I witnessed the U.S. debut of Gunther and the Sunshine Girls. I feel like I've experienced the entire course of human evolution in 24 hours. And so to bed.