Stuff I'm Listening To #63 - Beethoven's 9th Symphony

Composer: Beethoven
 
Title: 9th Symphony
 
Favourite Lyrics:
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere. 
Freude!
Freude! 
Translation: 
O friends, no more of these sounds!
Let us sing more cheerful songs,
More songs full of joy!
Joy!
Joy! 
Why?: I started collecting records again.

I blame Talk Talk and Rustin Man... in March there were three brand spanking new Talk Talk records at the record store my husband accidentally took me to (it happened to be beside the restaurant he took me to) in March. But no record player.

Then the appeal of having a signed print from Paul Webb was too much for me to resist. My husband listened to me whine about how nice it would be to have it and how I didn't want to spend any money because it cuts into my ice cream budget and he succumbed and paid for my Drift Code album. But I still didn't have a record player.
 
Finally, Spirit of Eden got delivered, unexpectedly, at my work on my weekend shift (I've taken on a few extra hours lately). I posted excitedly about it yesterday. Still... no record player....

When I got home last night and my husband dragged me out to purchase a kettle (ours broke) and in the department store he declared he was purchasing me a record player because he wanted to.

I almost cried. 

Yesterday happened to be five years since the first time I'd taken my husband to Roy Thompson Hall to hear Daniil Trifonov play Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff and then the Toronto Symphony after intermission played Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I remember him being utterly amazed at the performance. He'd never been to such a concert before. And then he had to deal with emotional me after. Why emotional me? Well...

 

There are so many feels here. Three of the most important men in my life have something to do with this photo.

First. Beethoven was my dad’s favourite composer and piece. 

Second. The Beethoven record pictured here had been purchased by my brother (mom asked him to go out and buy this record) for me when I was younger and just learning how to play the piano so I could hear it in all it's majesty. 

Third. The player, just purchased yesterday by my husband on impulse just to make me happy so I could finally listen to all my records, after he saw the post of my Spirit of Eden purchase yesterday, and the Rustin Man and Talk Talk Records which husband helped purchase these last few months.

I usually cry during Ode to Joy because of my dad. I’m crying now writing this because it reminds me of my dad. Pity my husband who at Roy Thomson Hall five years ago had to deal with me ugly crying during the Ode to Joy part. I was laughing at my own ugly crying too, because it was so ridiculously out of character for me. 

So aside from the test run last night to make sure the player was working, it was befitting it would be this piece which means so much to me and relates to three of the most important men in my life, that would break in my brand new record player.