Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee

I hope you enjoyed your Easter weekend! Today on Tea with Liya, I'm playing a hymn called "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee." The melody to this song was used in Beethoven's Symphony number 9, but lyrics were then added by Henry van Dyke in 1911. He wanted to turn the melody into an expression of the hope he had because of his faith. I hope you like listening to it!

Listen to the song here
(Can't see an audio player? It might not work if you're viewing this in an email client. If you are on teawithliya.blogspot.ca, you may need to try a different browser.)



Even though Beethoven's symphony number 9 was the inspiration of this song, it was actually known by composers as being associated with something far worse. Since composers like Beethoven and Anton Bruckner only lived to write 9 symphonies, other musicians came to believe that once they wrote their ninth symphony, death would soon follow.

In fact, some of them even tried to change the numbering of their pieces to delay their destined end. For example, Gustav Mahler, who wrote in the 18- and 1900s, wrote a piece of music, but refused to call it his ninth symphony. He then proceeded to write one which he actually called his ninth, after which he died before he could write a 10th.

So, does that mean you really shouldn't write a ninth symphony after all? Maybe that's a situation where we'd say "cross that bridge when you come to it," because you won't run into that problem unless you've already written 8 first - which is a pretty big accomplishment, I have to say.

Finally, an old-looking piece of staff paper that isn't the dreaded 6-line staff. The moment we've all been waiting for!

It could have just been the case that it took the majority of a composer's life (which would have been shorter on average, since health care has improved since then) to be able to arrange and publish nine songs that were written for an entire orchestra. But, even that only holds true if you look at a small segment of composers.

According to the Classical FM website where I learned about this, there are a lot of composers who wrote more than 9 symphonies, some writing 12 or 15. Another example is that Mozart wrote 41 - but if he started writing music when he was 5, he must have had a whole lot of time.

But we all know that the number of songs you write, or what you announce about those songs, doesn't change how long you will live. Even things like standing up and moving instead of being glued to your staff paper, or making sure you sleep even when you want to write down more song ideas, can't directly change how long you will live. The idea that someone can know things like this would just be more disinformation, just like the idea that you'll only live to write 9 symphonies.

I'm sure we can all celebrate that Beethoven finished his 9th, though, because if he hadn't, he would never have written down the melody that made this hymn I'm playing today exist.

Keep filling your teacup with music!
~Liya