Listening to “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in a Focusing-Oriented Way: Commentary Using an Official Video

In Focusing workshops, to help participants understand “getting a handle” and “resonating the handle” in the Six Steps, I have often explained these steps by having the people listen to the first five to six minutes of the fourth movement, “Ode to Joy” from the 9th Symphony (Beethoven, 1824/2005). The music metaphorically conveys what a Focuser is experiencing. This music evokes the process of moving forward from “It doesn’t fit” to “It does fit.”

I found an officially uploaded performance of the 9th Symphony on YouTube, so I will link to it to explain:

Composition of the beginning of “Ode to Joy”

As many of you know, in those “a few minutes” at the beginning of the fourth movement, the music proceeds by repeating the pattern of “music played by the full orchestra” and “response played by the bass strings” several times. I want to compare this to the suggestion by the listener and the response by the Focuser, or the internal dialogue between “I” and “my felt sense.” The “orchestral” music is the symbol that throws itself at the felt sense, and the “low string” melody is the response by the felt sense that rises from the bottom of my stomach.

Commentary to the beginning of “Ode to Joy”

Click on the following, where the time is shown as “52:13,” and the commented music will be played.

52:13 At the beginning of the fourth movement, the “orchestra” plays dramatic music like a storm with a series of timpani.

52:25 Then immediately, the “low strings” counteract it with the melody (recitative): “Oh friends, not these sounds (O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!).”

52:43 “Not good? No, it’s not, it’s supposed to be good, recheck it,” the “orchestra” plays the music of the storm again.

52:53 The “low strings” still answered, “No, no, no.”

Next, the “orchestra” begins a review of the 9th Symphony so far.

53:05 First, the “orchestra” recreates the beginning of the first movement, which evokes the separation of the sky and the ground from chaos.

53:20 But again, the “low strings” gave a categorical answer: “No, no, no, it doesn’t fit.”

53:47 The “orchestra” then recreates the light music of the second movement.

53:53 The “low strings” responded positively, “Oh, that could be good,” but finally, they balked, saying, “Well, but there’s something different about it...”

54:11 Then, the “orchestra” recreates the peaceful music of the third movement.

54:24 The “low strings” response seemed to be in limbo. It was like, “It sounds good, but it doesn’t sound good...hmmm...” In the end, it cancels out.

Tanaka (2021, April)

54:48 Finally, the “orchestra” came up with a new melody. But since it had been rejected several times before, it gently gave them the short melody as if waiting for their response.

54:53 Suddenly, the low strings responded, “Yes, yes, that’s it, that’s it. That’s right.”

55:00 The “low strings” and the “orchestra” zigzagged and joined together in fine-tuned harmony, and for a while, they continued to enjoy the feeling of being in perfect harmony (resonating).

55:26 At last, the “low strings (felt sense)” themselves begin to sing this joyful song in a “still small voice.”

56:12 The various instruments begin to respond to the low strings slowly. The music swells, squeezes, swells some more, and gradually becomes a big swell.

57:44 Finally, “Ode to Joy” is played by the full orchestra.

As mentioned above, Beethoven may have been a 19th-century natural Focuser, using music rather than words.

P.S.

This way of proceeding with music is by no means out of order, but it cannot be deduced in advance. Regarding this way of proceeding from lived experience to symbolic expression in music, I refer to the philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey, who influenced Gendlin.

Tone follows upon tone and aligns itself with it according to the laws of our tonal system. This system leaves open infinite possibilities... Everywhere free possibility. Nowhere in this conditioning is there necessity. ... There is a having-to-be-thus in this sequence—it involves not necessity but rather the actualization of an aesthetic value. We should not think that what follows at a certain point could not have gone differently. (Dilthey, 1927, p. 221; 2002, pp. 241–2)

Note

• The video above is a performance of “The 9th Symphony,” conducted by Riccardo Muti, uploaded to YouTube by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's official channel.

• John Eliot Gardiner’s explanation of finding a suitable melody after rejecting several melodies is helpful (Gardiner, 2020).

• The text above is an English translation of a Japanese article posted to the Japan Focusing Association mailing list over 20 years ago (Tanaka, 2002, June).

References

Beethoven, L. v. (1824/2005). Symphonie Nr. 9 d-moll, Op. 125 = Symphony no. 9 in D minor (edited by P. Hauschild; Partitur-Bibliothek, Nr. 5349). Breitkopf & Härtel.

Dilthey, W. (2002). The understanding of other persons and their manifestations of life (Lived Experience, Expression, and Understanding). In The formation of the historical world in the human sciences (edited by R. A. Makkreel, & F. Rodi, Selected works / Wilhelm Dilthey, vol. 3, pp. 226-47). Princeton University Press. Originally published as Dilthey, W. (1927). Das Verstehen anderer Personen und ihrer Lebensäußerungen (Erleben, Ausdruck und Verstehen). In Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, pp. 205-27). B.G.Teubner.

Gardiner, J. E. (2020). Symphony No. 9: ‘Up above the stars he must dwell,’ Retrieved from the official YouTube channel of Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras.

Gendlin, E. T. (1962/1997). Experiencing and the creation of meaning: a philosophical and psychological approach to the subjective (Paper ed.). Northwestern University Press.

Gendlin, E.T. (1964). A theory of personality change. In P. Worchel & D. Byrne (eds.), Personality change (pp. 100-148). John Wiley & Sons.

Gendlin, E. T. (1981). Focusing (Paper ed.). Bantam Books.

Tanaka, H. (2002, June). [focusing-net: 3206] A Focuser in the 19th century whose name is Beethoven [in Japanese]. Japan Focusing Association mailing list.

Tanaka, H. (2021, April). Tapping ‘it’ lightly and the short silence: applying the concept of ‘direct reference’ or “creative regress’ to the discussion of verbatim records of Focusing sessions (with the English language supervision of Akira Ikemi). Paper presented at Saying What We Mean: A Symposium on the Works of Eugene Gendlin.