Happy Birthday, Beethoven!

A friend has e-mailed to remind me that today is the anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany.

In honor of his birthday, some links to the words from his magnificent Ninth Symphony will be given below. Beethoven took the words from Friedrich Schiller's poem "An die Freude."

For Schiller's ode "An die Freude" in its original 1785 version with English translation, go HERE.

For Beethoven's 1823 version for use in his Ninth Symphony with English translation, go HERE.

(They may not be the best translations and I didn't do them, but they'll work.)

For the musical score (sheet music) of the symphony, go HERE.

To listen to samples of the music, go HERE.

Ah! The JOYS of both poetry and music!

You've been told and NOW YOU KNOW.

Update: You may also download and listen to this excerpt from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony HERE. (N.B. It's a .ogg file and you will probably need Winamp or a plug-in for Windows Media Player in order to listen to it after you download it.)