An die Freude

This year has been an exceptional Prom season, and it is not over yet. I have attended four concerts so far—one more to go—and each one has been better than the one before. The last-but-one, where a very frail Daniel Barenboim conducted the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra doing Schubert’s great C-major ninth symphony, I thought was the apotheosis of the series. Barenboim is a Jewish Israeli citizen, but he also has Palestinian citizenship. The Divan orchestra was set up by him and the Palestinian-American academic Edward Said twenty-five years ago, and comprises musicians from Israel and many of the surrounding Muslim countries, although it also includes other nationalities. This was a magnificent performance of a wonderful piece that had never been performed in Schubert’s lifetime, made so much more poignant by the on-going appalling Middle-East conflict between the countries whose nationals were playing in the orchestra. I wondered for a second why the Promenaders applauded the orchestra when its members came on stage, but of course it was recognition that friendship and brotherly love through art transcend all other considerations.
 
But it was the Prom last Wednesday, whose climactic theme was friendship and brotherly love, that eclipsed even Schubert, Barenboim, and the Divan Orchestra. Nicholas Collon was conducting the Aurora Orchestra, the National Youth Choir, and the BBC Singers in a performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony from memory... Where to start? This year is the 200th anniversary of its first performance in Vienna. Beethoven was so deaf, that a member of the orchestra had to turn him around to face the audience so that he could see their rapturous applause. 
 
Wednesday’s Prom started with a staged re-enactment by actors, some of whom were deaf themselves, of ‘conversations’ the composer had via his notebooks. He was so deaf that he had to converse via written messages. Then, the conductor deconstructed the symphony by having the orchestra play bits of it and describing how they came about and all fitted together.
 
The climax though was in the second half when they played the symphony through. There was no printed music on stage, so all the musicians, except the cellists and possibly the double bassists, were standing, unconstrained, and able to move as the music took them. Furthermore, not all of the players were on stage all of the time—they came and went as their musical parts required. And when the fourth movement started, I lent to my daughter-in-law who was with me and whispered “There’s something I don’t understand... Where’s the choir?” Only the orchestra were present. Then they silently walked on stage just before the singing started, and now commenced pure magic. For the fourth movement of his ninth symphony Beethoven set Schiller’s poem, An die Freude – Ode to Joy, to music. Ode to Joy is a paean to brotherly love, which God knows we need in the world today. The choral movement includes four soloists, and they moved around the stage, at one point making way for a marching band! Part of the fourth movement sounds just like a German marching band and there they were, strutting along, being led by a musician playing a side drum. And just when it seemed there could be no more, the choir started to ‘sign’ some of the words they sang using sign language.
 
I was quite overcome by the end and quickly wiped my eyes so that my daughter-in-law could not see the tears and thus ruin my studied cynical persona. When the final crescendo was over the entire audience at a packed Albert Hall immediately rose in a spontaneous standing ovation. It was an experience I shall never forget.