Beethoven's 9th

Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony

Shivers. Then feathers in pair criss-cross the sky. A bird. Many birds. Leaves swirl. Everything at once. Then the sky bursts open. Trumpets declare. Flutes keep the breeze light and soft. The violins as wheat waving in the summer morning. Then here. Then there. The violins. The cellos. Whipsawing while the woodwinds play like toddlers, tripping over their untied shoes. The sheets fanning the wind. Big bursts of hot sun slam the concrete. Titan and his wave. My head sways to the left. Cellos. To the right. Trumpets and French horns. My breathing raises my chest. I am holding my breath. I am reminding myself to breath. My shoulders squeeze, I am holding my knee to stop myself from standing up in this chair, from flinging my arms into the air, from dancing. How can anyone sit still while triumph blows out a brass section and the violins tickle and the angles of the down beats demand…what? Demand attention. Demand majesty. Demand love. Demand joy. Of course. Joy. How could I have forgotten?

Beethoven’s 9^th. I took a last-minute invitation from my dear friends Barbara and Mark to join them at The Nashville Symphony tonight. I had planned on going to the movies alone tonight, curling in a dark theater and eating popcorn alone. I’d had a long day, teaching, recovery, meetings, a songwriting date. Truly, I just wanted to curl up on my couch. But I love the symphony and rarely go. I’ve only really been to hear a live symphony a few times in my life (despite my years in NYC where I could have watched dress rehearsals for free). And I love spending time with my friends. So, I said yes, and, although I was almost bleary tired, I found the energy to get out of the house.

As the first notes sounded, I closed my eyes. I usually watch the first two violin chairs. I watch them move live figure skaters, as if someone gave them permission to move around, be stars. The rest of the violins are still. I love watching a conductor. My head conducts along with them. Tonight, I wanted to lose myself in the music. I closed my eyes. I was probably dancing ballet with my head to the movement of the music, but I didn’t care. Colors flashed like rain, like arrows of silver, wheat fields. I was a hawk flying over Arizona deserts, low to the ground, dragging my shadow behind me. No, I was a dark flock of sparrows, zig zagging the sky, folding in on itself, then spanning out into a diamond, blue sky swelling, then darkening as the diamond folded in and then turned around. The colors were pastel. The rain dropped like crystals, timpani thunder, gently gently. I was watching my own Fantasia. I was tripping. Each scene was a different adventure. I did mushrooms a handful of times in my 20’s and I remember that feeling of an endless adventure and the landscape would change and then another roller coaster. The night was endless. This time, I was completely sober, but not in my chair. Not in my body. I was watching life below, riding a cloud over a bucolic scene, rabbits and deer and bluebell fields.

I was sweating. Was this an ill-timed hot flash? Was I getting a cold? My throat was closing up a bit and my chest pressed in and I could tell my voice was hoarse. My breathing was shallow. Memories were coming fast, some not so pleasant. A drunk subway ride stealing home in the middle of the night, hoping I hadn’t forgotten anything in his apartment on the Upper West Side. A tiny studio apartment at 113 East 11^th Street, between 1^stand Avenue A. The broken buzzers on the outside. $575 a month. Veselka’s for borscht late at night. The KGB bar, all painted red. The jukebox. I remember we played “Daughter” by Pearl Jam. Liz Phair. Smashing Pumpkins. Downstairs the Ukrainian bar, smoke and pool tables and old men. Late nights at Mona’s and Sophies further into Alphabet City. Pot and hash dealers on street corners. East 6^th with the Indian restaurants. Everyone I knew had their favorite, their own ‘go to’ choice. I miss that street so much. I miss walking. I miss the smell of the subway must coming up through the grates.

Now the cellos play the theme. Now, the violas join and a bassoon in the back is leaping around in syncopation. Ah, here come the violins on top of it all, the violins in counterpoint, the cellos at the bottom like the sea. The brass, the horns open the curtain. Now I’m falling in love, driving through Wyoming and Montana, feeling at home with someone, my head out the window. The oboes and bassoons. I’m not sweating anymore. I’m a bit dizzy, tired, but still watching the movie while the music plays.

The soloists. The choir. The “Ode to Joy” starts and I well up with tears. How well we know this piece. But to hear it live. I’m in sneakers. All black. No makeup. There are gorgeous women in long black dresses with heels and men in suits. I’m in wonder. I’m making gratitude lists in my head. I’m lucky to be alive. I feel blessed, so blessed, to have a life where I can go to the symphony that is 5 minutes from my house. I’m crying, my eyes are still closed. I hope I haven’t been swaying too much. I don’t want to share this with anyone.

It’s the first time I’ve heard Beethoven live. I want more now. I’ve been listening to folk singers, used to following single melodies. Now I’m lost in polyphony where the melody is bounced back and forth between sections, turning into simple motif to morph into harmony. It’s all too much for me to imagine one human being held all of this music in their head. And I wrote a song today with a friend that I’m proud of, and now, here I am, listening to Beethoven. I have barely scratched the surface.

If you ask me one thing I’m afraid of, I’ll tell you (besides spiders) it’s dancing in public. I always wanted to be a good dancer, but I suspect that I’m just not. In college, we danced every night and I miss that. One of my favorite things about Amherst College was our dance parties at the big houses every night of the week. I haven’t danced for years. Maybe decades. I don’t dance. But I realized tonight, that I would dance to this music. Not in front of anyone, certainly. But I can imagine putting the record on in my house alone and letting my body do what it wanted to do tonight, confined to a chair.

They say writing about music is like dancing about architecture. But I think you can dance about architecture. I can’t tell you anything about Beethoven or Beethoven’s 9^th. I only know it made me dance with my eyes closed, while sitting still in a velvet chair tonight, talking to God and counting my blessings.