Author: Harvey Sachs

Publisher: Random House, New York

Those who enjoy history know that it is far more than a long and boring list of names and dates. History, like life, is messy and connected in ways that many of us never bother to look into or even imagine.

One thing I’ve realized over the years is that greatness can come from anywhere, but it just doesn’t come out of nowhere.

That rule most definitely applies to Beethoven, and his magnum opus, The Ninth Symphony.

Before The Ninth, there had been nothing like it, and there’s been nothing like it since.

But there is far more to the story of The Ninth than Beethoven’s ambition to set a poem–the “Ode to Joy”–to music. In the year it was first heard–1824–there were many other events great and small happening in the world, as there always are. Like any other work of art, The Ninth is a product of and connected to the world as it was at the time of Beethoven’s sitting down to compose it.

In this book, Harvey Sachs examines the world as it was in 1824, from its politics and conflicts, to its culture, society, philosophy, literature, its intellectuals, and of course its music. His scope is at once grand and minute, and he expertly travels the threads that make up our Historical Tapestry.

What strikes me most are the humanistic threads he weaves into it all. His Beethoven, and the men and women who think like he did, are those voices that cry out against the dual darknesses of ignorance and hate that are always threatening to overtake the light of this world.

But even the smallest of lights is capable of dispelling the darkness around it.

And The Ninth is a supernova.

Next time: Two countries separated by a common language.