CHICAGO — The first thing that you need to know is that I love Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I probably listen to it monthly on my system. I’m not the biggest lover of classical music. I do not have much knowledge of classical music. Neither my grade school nor my high school had an orchestra, so I never learned to read music or play an orchestral instrument. But if I’m going to sit down and enjoy a listening session, I always play at least one classical recording a night. I like to buy second-hand record albums, and clean them before listening. So my collection improbably contains more classical than any other genre. I own seventeen versions of Beethoven 9 on vinyl, and a magnificent Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony on SACD. I am not well-versed enough to compare and contrast these differing versions.
And I have never heard it performed live.
I read that the Grant Park Music Festival was performing Beethoven’s Ninth this season. A closer look revealed they were playing on consecutive Friday and Saturday nights, along with three open rehearsals during the week. The last time Beethoven’s Ninth was performed here was by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in May of 2024. I vowed to go both nights and try to attend a rehearsal or two. It would be so educational to watch an orchestra work on a familiar piece of music. I mean, why not? It is right in my hometown, and it’s free! If you were guaranteed the Stones were going to play “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’”, you’d go both nights.
So I informed my wife of my intention, and tried to clear my work schedule so I could be downtown for a couple of the rehearsals. She committed to one performance, and told me to go to the rest by myself. I was looking forward to this all summer!
And then life happened.
The actor who portrays Ron Swanson, Nick Offerman, is in town to do a play riffing on Eugene O’Neill’s writing of “The Iceman Cometh.” Offerman’s real-life wife Megan Mulally stars in it with him, and you know her as Karen from the TV sitcom “Will and Grace.” I wanted to see this play with these stars while it’s here. Then my brother called me up, having learned of the same play and wanting to get tickets. Sure enough, they chose the date of the Saturday performance of Beethoven. Damn It! Well, they’re playing the Ninth two nights, and I can still go the first night with my wife. And there’s all the rehearsals. (The play, Iceboy, was funny, sometimes silly, and unexpected. It has finished its run here in Chicago; otherwise I would recommend it to you highly.)
On Tuesday, I took half a day from work to drive downtown to watch rehearsals. It cost $38 to park my car underneath Millennium Park, but I could get out quickly if I needed to go to work in the afternoon. The forecast called for rain, so I even brought an extra set of work clothes. I have never been to rehearsals at Grant Park before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I walked expectantly up to the Pritzker Pavilion and was greeted with absolute silence. No Beethoven. My phone started alarming me that we were under a tornado warning. Not just a tornado watch, but a destructive tornado had actually been sighted in our area. I got to the iconic Frank Gehry-designed bandshell just in time to see the musicians walking off stage. I befriended a park worker who encouraged me to wait it out in the tunnels that lead to the underground bathrooms.
I don’t know what you know about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It is a warhorse of the Classical music genre. Even if you don’t know it, you know it. Some pieces are intimately familiar to everyone. “Ode to Joy” is in the last movement. You know Ode to Joy. Beethoven’s Ninth was the first Symphony to utilize that most expressive of instruments: The Human Voice. Beethoven famously lost his hearing before he wrote this one. It is achingly beautiful, but he never got to hear it. You can picture Gary Oldman’s Beethoven not hearing but feeling the music in the movie “Immortal Beloved”. How many pieces of music are the subject of an Academy Award-winning Hollywood blockbuster?
Hovering below rehearsals, I awaited the rain to stop. When it was finally safe to venture out of my cave, I headed directly to the Pavilion. Sure enough, the entire orchestra was seated on stage, listening to the conductor Giancarlo Guerrero’s direction. The tornado had passed; the rain abated. All the seats were soaked save the first 5 rows. I sat in the 4th row center, hoping for the ultimate audio experience. No more than 4 or 5 people were watching with me. The musicians would sometimes point or comment at us fools in the rain.
And the Pritzker Pavilion never opened the giant soundproof glass doors separating us from the orchestra. We could watch them sawing away at multiple double basses and cellos. We could see the enthusiasm of all the percussionists smacking their bells, drums, and blocks. But we could not hear a note. Once or twice, during the loudest part of the symphony, when every musician was playing their loudest, the fortissimo, you could hear a muffled version of familiar music. But that was it. I felt like Ludwig Von Beethoven himself, able to see the musicians playing, but unable to hear the music.
Chicago Air, Water, and Beethoven Show?
The Chicago Air and Water Show was scheduled the same weekend as Grant Park Music Festival’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth. It was not a good mix of brass, bassoons, and bombers. A mighty orchestra can play very quietly. A mighty fighter jet cannot. Seven General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons flying in formation at the lakefront is one of the loudest things humans have ever heard in history.
One of my best friends owns a really nice large boat on Lake Michigan. A yacht. He and his wife know of my love of boats, so I am luckily invited out a number of times each summer. I have never seen the Chicago Air and Water Show from the lake. I’ve seen it from the beach. I snuck out onto the roof of the Drake Hotel once to see it. (Don’t ask) But never from a boat out on the lake. This year, my buddy invited me to see the air show practice on his boat. He wasn’t going out there on Saturday or Sunday when the actual show was happening because that’s when every boater in Chicago, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin anchors off North Avenue to catch a glimpse of a supersonic fighter jet. It is one of the worst days for boating in Chicago. But the Friday practice offered all of the thrills of the Chicago Air and Water Show from out on the lake, without the stupidity and crowds.
They wanted to head out of the harbor around noon on Friday. I wanted to go to rehearsals, which started at 11. I took the blue line downtown early, found a coffee, and made a beeline for Millennium Park. There were maybe 100 listeners in the seats. The great lawn was roped off. The large glass soundproof doors were rolled away into their pockets. You could hear the music! Now this was more like it.
I sat in the 10th row, center section. The Grant Park Symphony Orchestra sounded magnificent. Giancarlo Guerrero would rev them up like a race car engine, then stop them on a dime. He offered suggestions that no one could ignore. It was fascinating watching the musicians annotate their scores with their pencils. You could see them nodding to each other with the great conductor’s instructions. This was what I had hoped for; this is what I wanted to see. A working orchestra honing their craft. 85 musicians on stage, 105 chorus members. It seemed like they were singing the words to The Gettysburg Address. After about an hour, Giancarlo Guerrero thanked the musicians, and they started leaving the stage. My buddy called me and asked my ETA. Okay, the practice was over, and I could now go boating on a beautiful day. I walked out of the seats and found an information booth. I asked the attendant about the Gettysburg address thing. He did not hear me properly and explained that the orchestra just practiced two pieces of music, The Liberty Bell and Mount Rushmore. They were on a short break and would be back to rehearse Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony next. Damn it! I had to leave and go on a boat. I would not be able to listen to them practice their Beethoven.
I walked to my friends’ dock, and they greeted me warmly, offered me a refreshment, and as soon as I stepped on board, the engines fired. We enjoyed a beautiful day on the water, saw many cool planes fly right over our heads, and swam in the cool deep waters of Lake Michigan. I know, my life sucks.
This was Friday, and tonight my wife and I were going to attend the actual performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with The Grant Park Music Festival. I had waited all summer for this. To say I was excited, eager, and ready would be a huge understatement. She drove from home and parked underneath; I walked from the boat. She brought the camp chairs; I stopped at that Mariano’s and bought picnic provisions. She had found a perfect location on the lawn, just a few feet from the concrete walkway that separates the seats from the Great Lawn.
Now there’s something else you need to know about me. I consider myself a serious listener. It is easy for me to close my eyes and immerse myself in the music. That is why I have a fancy stereo system. It is why I have thousands of albums and CDs. It is why I have a dedicated listening room. Listening is an activity unto itself. Like reading. Steve Guttenberg likes to ask if you’re an audiophile and defines that as someone who can just listen without multitasking. That is exactly who I am. I am incapable of falling asleep listening to music; it just captures my attention. We attend a lot of concerts. One of my pet peeves is people talking during a concert. I’m thinking that if you want to talk, why did you go to a concert? Go to a restaurant, have a conversation. Go to a park. Stay home. But some people love music here. They bought the tickets a long time ago because they respect the artist. They paid for the tickets, for parking, maybe for a babysitter so they could listen to the artist. They truly want to listen to the artist. We don’t want to have to listen to you jabber on and on about whatever thought popped into your head when you weren’t listening to the music you came to see.
A Millennial Ode to Joy Experience
A live symphony orchestra outdoors in a city of 2.7 million inhabitants is fraught with audio foibles. The Beethoven’s Ninth fan in me was overjoyed with the “Ode to Joy.” Musically, it was oh so satisfying. To hear it performed live, and with a full chorus, was something on my bucket list. And it did not disappoint. But the picky golden-eared audiophile had some nits to pick. Giancarlo Guerrero had the double basses play the theme as softly as they humanly could, the pianississimo. The Cicadas living in the trees to the east of Pritzker Pavilion can play louder than Pianississimo double basses. I love this section, this introduction of the main theme. You could not hear it. It was below the “noise floor”. There is a Coast Guard station right there along the lakefront. The Coast Guard, the Chicago Police, and the Chicago Fire Department use it for their helicopters. I lost count of how many helicopters took off and landed during the performance of Beethoven. I also lost my place in the music. These helicopters were off to the right. Off to the left is the city. And the same Police Department and Fire Department have many vehicles with loud sirens. I do not know how many of them were active during the concert, but it was too numerous to mention. And the picnickers next to us would loudly discuss what they were doomscrolling on their ever-present smartphones. I call them picnickers because to call them listeners would be an insult to all of the music fans present that night.
Okay, enough about the nits and the locusts. There were times Friday night when the entire audience was rapt, silent, and listening. Thousands of souls, all focused on the music. It was heart-lifting to be a part of it. There is hope for our city, for the future of serious music, and for the art of listening.
I just learned that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is going to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony next season. It will be indoors at Symphony Center. No helicopters, no cicadas. I think I’m going to get tickets.