…and I have our local classical/NPR station playing in the other room.
The fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony came on, and I caught myself unconsciously singing along:
Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum,
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt…
I "discovered" Beethoven's Ninth in my sophomore (maybe Junior) year in High School, about the time I was getting good in German, and I was blown away. Until that point I'd never heard German sung, and here it was in all of Beethoven's beautiful, bombastic beauty. I poured over those lyrics and committed them to memory; one of the few things from high school that remain to this day as clear as if they'd happened yesterday.
Shortly thereafter I discovered a German language recording of Handel's Messiah during a trip to Circles Records downtown in the early 70s. Did I mention that at the same time I was hip deep in the German language I was also in the throes of teenage religious fervor?
I don't remember how I obtained the recording; what I do remember was the three disk set was $30—a fortune at the time—meaning it was probably a Christmas gift from my parents. After my abandonment of any pretext of Christianity post Star Wars and my great vinyl purge of the early 90s, I'd completely forgotten about it.
But then one day about fifteen years ago or so, it popped into my head and I tracked down a CD reissue online somewhere and purchased it for old times' sake. Much like Beethoven's Ninth and its Ode to Joy, I'd listened to my vinyl copy so many times the German lyrics were forever burned into my memory, and my father once said if he "heard that infernal piece of music one more time his head would explode!" (Little did he know disco would invade our home just a couple years later!) The difference when I received the CD reissue was that the music prompted none of the religious ecstasy it did when I was in my teens and I could appreciate it simply for being the musical masterpiece it was.
I ripped Der Messias into iTunes before getting rid of most of my CD collection but I can honestly say I've not listened to it since.
(I may have to rectify that later today.)