Ludwig Van

[Sethomas]

I was very apprehensive about becoming addicted to the final movement of Beethoven's 9th (An die Freude/Ode to Joy), but once I read the original lyrics for some spark of curiosity I fell in love with the text originally intended by Schiller to just be a typically recited poem. Wanting to put sound to word, I downloaded the movement a long while ago and found it waaaaaay too addicting. I hate telling people that it's one of only a handful of my forays into classical music because it's so cliché given the inseparable association with A Clockwork Orange, but it's so fucking perfect. As much as I like A Clockwork Orange, it's fucking obnoxious for it to be so strongly associated with Beethoven's 9th which is so greater than it.

The lyrics are so far-out that you could call it a coinflip as to whether they're genius or insane, but I'd definitely say they're the former.

"Joyful, beautiful godly spark, Daughters of Elysium. We enter drunk of fire, heavenly thine holy throne".

What actually made me put on this on my Winamp (and thus write about it) was hearing a snippet of Mozart's Requiem, which is perhaps one of the few works even more perfect than An die Freude. I wanted to put it on to help me study for a paper, but I remembered that I always fail when I do that because I get entrenched in the music and lyrics. Yeah, the Latin often transcends my own understanding of the language, but I know the gist of it.

"Hear us: Grant them rest, and may eternal light shine upon them." Hearing those words so familiar to me from the Catholic funerary mass itself (a triumph of the human experience, regardless of your religious thoughts or lack thereof) is just surreal set to music.

But, I decided that before i begin to focus on Requiem for tonight, I should hear its counterpoint. I feel that An die Freude and Requiem are two inseparable components to the human experience, set to perfect symphonies. The joys of life and the mystery of death, inextricably paired with their respective religious overtones.

[Grislygus]

Dear Sweet Jesus, I wish I got as much out of music as you do.

[ItalianStereotype]

listen to better music?

[Grislygus]

Too late.

[Sethomas]

Well, the thing is that I don't listen to classical nearly as much as I should. Granted, I'm going to see the symphony tonight with my girlfriend, but it's the first time I've done something like that in over a year. My last cultural event was IU's production of Il Barbiere di Seviglia, which was fantastic. Now that I have an MP3 player, I've been entrenched in worlds of alternative music I've had for years but to which I never paid attention. I figure if I can broaden those horizons, I may as well continue with the classical.