When Beethoven Conducted What He Could Not Hear

On May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven stood before the orchestra at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna to premiere his Ninth Symphony. He was almost entirely deaf. He could not hear the oboes swell or the timpani thunder. He could not hear the choir rise into the magnificent "Ode to Joy." Yet he conducted with such fierce conviction that the musicians followed two conductors that evening — the official one keeping time, and Beethoven, who poured every ounce of his being into music he would never hear with his own ears.

When the final notes rang out, the audience erupted. They wept. They shouted. They threw their hats into the air. But Beethoven kept conducting, unaware the piece had ended. The contralto Caroline Unger finally tugged his sleeve and turned him around to face the crowd. Only then did he see five standing ovations from people who had just witnessed something transcendent.

Psalm 98 commands us to "sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things." This is not polite applause. The psalmist says the rivers clap their hands and the mountains sing together — creation itself cannot contain its praise. Beethoven proved that the song of joy does not depend on perfect circumstances. It rises from something deeper than what our ears can register. When the Almighty acts, even the silent are swept into the chorus, and all creation joins the standing ovation that has no end.