En die Freude

Ode to Joy

Friedrich Schiller

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

The San Diego Symphony Orchestra with the San Diego Masterworks Chorale in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony would have made Friedrich Schiller proud.  I’ve struggled through Schiller’s poem “An Die Freude” for years trying unsuccessfully to erase my doubt that human beings will ever finally get it right.  Schiller’s and Beethoven’s declaration that eventually utopia will come on earth seems less likely all the time. Where are the signs that, as Schiller wrote, “Alle Menschen werden Brüder.”  All the signals circulating among people on earth indicate that indeed all men will not become brothers in my lifetime, and likely not ever. Although we optimists want to believe that mutually supportive brotherhood of all people on earth is a possibility, the signs are not good that it will ever happen. Schiller declared in his poem that the way to universal brotherhood is through “joy.”  In a later version of his poem, Schiller wrote, “beggars become princes’ brothers.”  In 21st Century world cultures, that would mean the lords of industry, the royalty at the top of world corporations, will become brothers with their workers all over the world, even the workers stitching our shirts together in Bangladesh and Columbia and...and...and. As they say on the street, “It ain’t gonna happen.”  Disparity (or GREED) is the name of that game, and the workers aren't winning it.

So we settle for as much joy as we can possibly find with family and friends, and we hope for joy for as many people as possible as often as possible.  Freude, schöner Götterfunken.