In the city of Bonn during the year 1770 a woman named Maria found herself again unhappily with child. Her husband Johann was an abusive alcoholic who suffered from ill health. She herself was not well. Their only child at the time also suffered physically.
Due to her circumstances, she considered having an abortion. Instead, she chose to give her child a chance at life. Somewhere around December 16, 1770 Maria gave birth to a male child. Her full name was Maria Magdalena van Beethoven. Her child, Ludwig van Beethoven, grew up to become one of the greatest composers of all time.
Near the end of his life, having already written innumerable immortal masterpieces, Beethoven composed what is considered by many to be his crowning achievement. When his Ninth Symphony premiered on May 7, 1824 at the Kärntnertor theater in Vienna, it was performed by the largest orchestra ever assembled to perform a Beethoven work. The fourth and final movement of the symphony added a choir to the orchestra, which sang the words to the poem “Ode to Joy,” written in 1785 by the German poet Friedrich Schiller.
Though nearly deaf at the time, Beethoven insisted upon directing the orchestra and singers through the entire work. To humor him, he was allowed to “conduct” the orchestra in front of the actual conductor’s stand. Unknown to him, the actual conductor, Louis DuPort, instructed the orchestra to ignore Beethoven’s conducting and follow him instead.
Violinist Joseph Böhm, who performed with the orchestra that night recalled that “Beethoven himself conducted. That is, he stood in front of a conductor’s stand and threw himself back and forth like a madman. At one moment he stretched to his full height. At the next he crouched down to the floor. He flailed about with his hands and feet as though he wanted to play all the instruments and sing all the chorus parts. The actual direction was in Duport’s hands. We musicians followed his baton only.”
The theater crowd listened to each movement of the symphony, with its profound melodies weaving in and out in endless variation, much of which brought tears to their eyes. Then came the final movement, which contained perhaps the most joyous melody ever written. At the climax of that final movement the choir and the orchestra combined to bring the audience to its feet in ecstasy.
When the performance concluded, Beethoven was several bars behind due to his nearly non-existent hearing and still conducting. Twenty-year-old Caroline Unger, who had sung the contralto part in the fourth movement, walked over to him and turned him around to face the audience. Only then did Beethoven realize the impact his masterpiece had made upon them.
On March 26, 1827 Beethoven passed from this world to the next. In 1907 Christian author and lyricist Henry van Dyke adapted his “Ode to Joy” melody to the beloved hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, we adore Thee.”
As great as is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, along with his other works, it is sobering to consider that his music almost never was. One wonders what great gifts to the world we have actually lost due to the scourge of abortion?
