If you are a regular listener to podcasts, chances are you have heard the popular “The Way I Heard It” written and produced by Mike Rowe. You may remember Mike Rowe as the host of the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” program.
In his podcast, “The Way I Heard It”, Mike weaves a story, dropping hints about a seemingly obscure event only to reveal, at last, that he is telling the backstory of a well known person or event. His show is similar to Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story” if you listened to radio in the 1970’s.
Please listen to Mike Rowe’s podcast after you listen to this story. One, I’m selfish and hope to keep you here and two, his polished story will sound so much better after hearing my attempt.
I’m calling this first installment a Musical Mystery Opus 1, No. 1 “Wishful thinking”.
Listen to the full episode here
YouTube Rabbit Trail
I was falling down a YouTube rabbit hole the other day when I found a flash mob video. I love these videos where unsuspecting shoppers are treated to a surprise Christmas concert at a shopping mall or drivers waiting at a traffic light are the captive audience of crosswalk musicals with James Corden and his famous guest entertainers.
Anyway, the video I saw the other day started in a bustling courtyard, maybe somewhere in Europe – it didn’t look like a city square in the U.S. People were milling about, walking or biking to restaurants, window shopping, visiting museums, minding their own business. The camera zooms in on a lone musician standing frozen like a statue behind his upturned hat, an obvious invitation for a tip, a donation, or a handout. A young girl takes the bait by dropping a few coins in his hat.
The musician “comes to life” and begins playing a low bassline practically unidentifiable until other musicians meander through the crowd and join him. What follows becomes a lovely musical experience that stops shoppers in their tracks and gathers a crowd and had the ability to bring me to tears sitting at my own desk watching. I would have been beside myself if I had experienced this live and in person!
People from all walks of life being united through music? Could that really happen or is it just wishful thinking? Where did this powerful music even come from? Who could have written such a moving melody? To learn that we have to go back a few years…
His Father's Shadow
It had been about 10 years since Louie’s last big hit. I can only imagine his nervous tension as he waited for the concert to start on that spring day of May 7. This was going to be the biggest event of its kind – ever! More musicians, more singers, an overflowing crowd in a massive auditorium.
I suppose you could say his reputation was at stake but I don’t think Louie really cared about his reputation at this point. For him, it was all about the music.
Louie had been attracted to music as far back as he could remember. You would think having a musical father would give him the best advantage. His dad did recognize his talent and taught him to play the piano, a bit. Unfortunately, Louie’s dad wasn’t as successful at writing music as he would have wanted, so his wishful thinking made him determined to mold Louie into the entertainer he could have been but wasn’t.
Actually, he wanted Louie to be just like another popular child prodigy with rock star status. You see, while Louie was all about the music, his dad was all about the money.
If Louie would just perform like that other kid, if they could get in with the right influencers, go to the right places, meet the right people, they’d be living like kings and queens! They’d be raking in the money!
Louie didn’t want to be an imitator; he wanted to make his own sound, do things his own way.
Whenever Louie’s dad heard him making up his own melodies and not practicing the popular music of the day, his abusive words and actions would force Louie back onto the restrictive path he expected.
Sadly, when Louie’s mom died, so did any buffer he might have had between his own music and his father’s expectations. Disappointed about not getting a music gig when he thought he was a shoo-in, Louie’s dad turned to alcohol for solace. After his wife’s death, he drank even more. So much so that more of his paycheck went to the local bartender than to his three young, motherless sons at home.
Louie’s priorities had to change. He had two younger brothers to take care of. To keep his dad from spending every penny he earned on alcohol, Louie made arrangements with his father’s boss to send half of his dad’s weekly pay home to him and his brothers to buy food and pay bills. Louie was only seventeen years old.
Some people in the crowd at that May 7 concert said he flailed about on stage, strutting back and forth, jumping around, giving the performance of a lifetime. Louie gave everything he had that night. But, sadly, when it was over, he didn’t hear the expected cheers and applause. All he heard was silence.
What went wrong? How could this have happened? Let’s go back a few more years….
Free to Live His Own Life
During his childhood, Louie was limited by his father’s greed and selfish ambition. After his mother’s death, he was bound by duty to care for his two younger brothers. Finally, when he was 22, his father also died and he and his brothers were free to live their own lives. Louie relocated so that he could focus more on his music, even hiring his middle brother, Karl, as his agent for a time. His younger brother, John, ended up studying to be a pharmacist’s assistant.
Without his father’s hindrance and with his brothers taken care of, for the most part, Louie was finally free to pursue his own wishful thinking.
At the age of 24 he staged his first solo gig and by 27 had booked a full concert tour, ironically at many of the same locations his father would have expected; tracking the same route that child prodigy had taken years before.
In fact, that child prodigy, now a grown man spoke highly of Louie saying, “Watch this young man; he will make a noise in this world.”
I told you it had been 10 years since Louie’s last big hit. Ten years ago, he had been on top of the world!
Enjoying the success of his solo career, Louie decided to branch out into other genres. His success in any style of music he attempted had him not only meeting the right people but becoming their beneficiary. “All the right people” were contributing their own money to help Louie keep putting out the hits. He was applauded in the finest circles, invited to the best parties, welcomed everywhere he went.
But all that was 10 years before May 7, a full decade, and what a troubling decade it had been.
A Decade of Trouble
The problems Louie faced in that decade came from three different fronts, not unlike problems you and I face today. He had money problems, family trouble, and worst of all, failing health.
The money problems came when some of those major benefactors, Louie’s primary source of income, died. Louie not only grieved the loss of good friends, but he also lost their financial support as well.
The family trouble came courtesy of his middle brother, Karl. Remember, he had worked as Louie’s agent at one time. He was a terrible agent, dealing harshly with music publishers. One story goes that he promised Louie’s newest release to one publishing company without realizing that Louie had already promised it to another. On top of that, Karl had no business working as an agent when he really couldn’t get his own act together. He got tangled up with a woman of ill-repute who had already born one son to another mane and was now pregnant with Karl’s child. The couple married against Louie’s better judgment and Karl died six short years later. Before he died, Karl granted joint custody of his young son, also named Karl, to both Louie and the boy’s mother.
Louie, who never married or had children of his own, was now the legal guardian of a young boy, having to deal with the boy’s mother whom he had never liked or trusted to begin with. There were many years of custody battles in court but that is not the focus of this musical mystery. I will tell you, however, that Karl grew up to marry and have a family of his own with four daughters and one son, a son he named after his Uncle Louie.
Besides the child custody battles, Louie found himself in court again, this time demanding custody and ownership of some of his music which his so-called friends had pawned off as their own.
Money problems? Louie had them.
Family trouble? Don’t get me started.
But both of those pale in comparison to Louie’s biggest burden; his failing health. Well, not failing health so much as failing hearing! What could possibly be worse to a successful musician and songwriter at the top of his game than to lose the ability to hear?
You’ve probably already guessed, because my hints aren’t as mysterious as Mike Rowe’s, that I’ve been talking about Ludwig van Beethoven.
Overcoming Trouble
Amid all the trials between 1814 and 1824, money problems, family trouble, devastating hearing loss, Ludwig would finish the decade with not only a huge hit, but it would also be the biggest hit of his musical career and remains one of the most well-known pieces of music in history.
After more than 10 years of being out of the public eye performing, suffering the loss of friends and financial support, dealing with stressful family situations, and enduring debilitating deafness what did Beethoven choose to proclaim in his magnum opus?
Ode to Bitterness?
Ode to Anger or Hatred?
Ode to Depression and Despair?
NO! Ode to JOY!
“O friends, no more of these sounds!
Let us sing more cheerful songs,
More songs full of joy! Joy! Joy!
Joy, bright spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire-inspired we tread
Within thy sanctuary.
Thy magic power re-unites
All that custom has divided,
All men become brothers,
Under the sway of thy gentle wings.”
The poem, “Ode to Joy” was written by German poet Friedrich Schiller in the summer of 1785. Beethoven found it in 1793, not long after his father’s death, and had long considered setting the poem to music.
When the Philharmonic Society of London commissioned him to write a new symphony, Beethoven took the opportunity to put his wishful thinking into action. He would conclude his massive 9th symphony with not only a grand orchestra but he would add a choir as well. That had never been done before, certainly not to this scale, but Beethoven, Louie as I‘ve been calling him, had always wanted to create music his own way; break the rules, try new sounds.
The premiere on the spring day, May 7, 1824, was met with thunderous applause. Beethoven, facing the orchestra, couldn’t hear the audience’s reaction behind him. One of the musicians on stage indicated to Beethoven that he should turn around to face the audience. When he did, the silent reaction he had first heard, burst into a vision of people on their feet, clapping, cheering, and even throwing their hats and scarves in the air so Beethoven could see their admiration for his music and for him.
A Song for the Ages
Since that wonderful opening night, since Beethoven’s first call for “all men to become brothers” the 9th symphony has been performed by thousands of orchestras. The main theme to that final movement, “Ode to Joy” has been played by every young student who sits on my piano bench.
Over the last 200 years, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” has been the backdrop for many momentous occasions.
In 1985, it was adopted as the official anthem of the European Union.
Since World War II, the 9th has become a Japanese New Year tradition. It was brought to Japan by German prisoners of war who played it to pass the time.
On Christmas Day, 1989, Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance of “Ode to Joy” combining musicians from East and West Germany to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Ninth has been present at various opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games – the epitome of all people joining together to celebrate the strength and ability of the human race.
Final Thoughts
Music is one of the lovely things in this world that has the ability to unite us. Some call it the universal language. I hope, the next time you hear Louie’s “Ode to Joy”, whether it is in a lovely concert hall, the background music for a commercial or your child’s video game, at church, or when your piano kid is practicing their piano, you will join Mr. Beethoven’s wishful thinking that all men would, indeed, become brothers; that all people would treat each other like family.
That sounds good to me.
Resources used to research this Musical Mystery
The Unique Story of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
Leonard Bernstein talks about Beethoven’s Ninth
Ode to Joy Lyrics, Translation and History
Beethoven’s Siblings: The van Beethoven Family
Patrick Kavanaugh’s book, “Spiritual Moments with the Great Composers”
The life and times of Beethoven; (Portraits of Greatness) by Gino Pugnetti
Teach for Growth Shout Out!
Before I close out today’s episode I want to give a shout out to NaNa and her Teach for Growth Project. NaNa is from Viet Nam but she currently teaches in Seoul Korea. She conducts interviews over the Facebook live stream for her teaching community back home in Viet Nam. I was honored to visit with her recently and you can catch the full video here. Congratulations on an excellent program, NaNa! Hello to you and your listeners!
Thanks for listening!
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