[Treeplanter]

I believe that the first performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony would have been one of the most profound and moving moments in human history and evolution.

At the time, B would have been quite famous particularly with his symphonies. His music for them and even so for us now, is in some degree shocking and challenging.

His underlying theme has always been the struggle for freedom in its broadest sense and he has been quoted as saying that he saw himself as being a spiritual teacher for the uplifting of humanity.
He had been working on this symphony in a variety of guises for over 25 years and set himself the task of using this poem, the Ode to Joy.
In time, his previous symphony was completed 10 years earlier and much of the resulting time was spent on this symphony.

All of B's symphonies are an evolution that builds on the achievements of the ones that go before and so it is a profound challenge to symbolically through his music to further broaden humanities consciousness.
When completed, it was the longest symphony ever written and probably the most complex and difficult to perform with the added challenge of also being the first with a choral final movement.
The first performance was in Vienna on the 7th May, 1824. Imagine the situation, the orchestra for some reason had only practiced it twice.

This was quite inadequate for such a complex and difficult work that obviously had never even been heard before.
At the performance, there is great excitement and expectation. The audience, seeing B there start to cheer enthusiastically and he bows in appreciation.

The cheers are so prolonged that the Chief of Police who is in attendance has to call for quiet so that the proceedings can start.
The music starts and one must wonder what the performance must have been like? The second movement starts, goes wrong and has so start again! An hour or so later it comes to a dynamic and vigorous end as that is how long it is. B is there marking time but is unaware that it has finished and the audience starts to cheer in shocked and confused appreciation. B then has to be physically turned around to see the audience's applause and to reveal himself to be totally deaf!
It is even now for us 200 years later, incomprehensible to have written this music and to be deaf! The audience understands the situation and is described by someone who was there as being like receiving an "electric shock" and "volcanic explosions" of applause of "sympathy and appreciation" and was "repeated again and again and seemed like it would never end".
In the noble evolution of humanity, this must have surely been a profound moment, Humanity has received another gift to assist us on the way.

B, his music and the incarnate miracle of his overcoming deafness. Since then, the music has gone on to become universal as symbols of the human spirit overcoming repression and tyranny and the words have been translated into over 80 languages.
Just now at Christmas, I cannot but think of another time when humanity also received what I would think of as a similar gift.
The quotes are from George Grove's Beethoven's 9 Symphonies, a book I strongly recommend.