A few months before attending the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance of Beethoven’s Ninth, I surprised myself by purchasing a flute for my eleven-year-old daughter. Shortly after joining fifth-grade band, she was obsessed with learning how to play Ode to Joy. I knew that I would not be able to help her with this endeavor; possessing neither the experience nor the vocabulary—what cognitive scientists would say is the fundamental lack of any mental framework or schema to guide my comprehension and actions—I struggle to talk about beautiful music, similar to how some nations struggle to talk about peace.
It was not easy for my daughter to learn how to play Ode to Joy. It was hard work. In the beginning, she did not even know how to produce sound and so she initially faltered, learning techniques similar to those taught by music educator Randy Navarre: she had to learn how to correctly hold the instrument, and when she put her mouth up to it, she needed to place her lips together naturally—not forcefully—“the way you close your mouth when you should be listening to the teacher in class, but instead…are daydreaming.” She learned to center her lips on the head joint, which took some readjusting, and then how to blow air out through her lips without puckering them. She learned to make the syllable pu with her mouth, as if she were a small child forming her first words. In the beginning, I praised my daughter for whatever sound she was able to produce, because—as Navarre warns of young flutists—she was scared to death that she would not be able to make sound at all. This was certainly my own earliest memory; I remember enduring fully formed thoughts as a frustrated two-year-old but was unable to physically speak. Even now in middle age—with all the fine motor coordination of muscles around my mouth, lips, and tongue—I still place my lips together forcefully. I still bite down on a stick.
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During that afternoon at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I recognized a silence different from that of nations during wartime, a contemplative silence that occurs in the presence of great works of art when one feels intimately connected to humanity and in communion with the cosmos. The collective silence that I observed immediately before Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was similar to one other time when I was in the presence of another artistic masterpiece: Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, the anti-war painting that illustrates the terror-bombing of the small Basque city of Gernika on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War.
I do not claim to understand the beautiful sound and resounding power of Ode to Joy to raise humanity above death and destruction, but I am strangely drawn to the woman in Guernica, who—trapped for eternity in a burning building—raises her hands to heaven, begging to be released from her pain. She cries but has no sound. This woman is somehow my memory, but not my experience. Then there is the war horse that writhes in the dust, enduring a spear thrust through its abdomen. The vocal cords of the animal are likely severed—once common practice for horses used in the Spanish bullfighting ring, rendering them unable to scream if mortally wounded—but I hear a silence different from the awe inspired by great works of art or even the non-intervention of nations during pivotal times in history: as a child, I was unable to speak about my difficult home life.
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On April 5, 2022, President Zelensky—desperate for military assistance and humanitarian aid—addressed the Spanish parliament, comparing the Russian invasion of his country with the attack on Gernika, one of the first cities to be destroyed by a new and shocking form of violence: relentless aerial bombing designed to inflict terror on innocent civilian populations and weaken the will of wartime enemies. Drawing parallels between the past and present, Zelensky said, “Just imagine, people in Europe now are spending weeks in basements to save their lives from shelling and air bombardment. It’s April, 2022, but it feels like April, 1937, when everybody found out about Gernika.”
Detailing the horrors of war during his speech, Zelensky explained that Ukrainian mothers were writing the names of their youngest children on their naked backs, along with birth dates and phone numbers, so that if they were separated during the chaos of war—and their children were too scared to make any sound at all—they would at least have a chance to be reunited; there would be strangers who would find them, gently turn them around, and see that they had names—each one of them written in heaven.
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When my daughter learned to play Ode to Joy on her flute—lightly, with spirit, as her sheet music specifically instructed—she was determined to figure it out on her own. Even though she only needed to learn five notes: B flat, C, D, E flat, and maybe F—remember, I do not understand beautiful music—she had a hard time placing her fingers on the flute correctly. She also had a difficult time breathing so that the notes would continue to flow. She had to stop and take a deep breath, correct herself, and try again. Most of the time when my daughter was learning Ode to Joy, she did not seem to care whether other people heard her mistakes. She seemed to understand that peaceful negotiations—the ones between life and death—often have false starts and missteps, but sometimes she simply did not have enough breath or was unable to balance the long instrument in her small hands, and so she sulked. If she could not get her sounds right, she stomped through our house and slammed the door to her bedroom. Her resilience needed to come from somewhere else, a place deep in her soul; she needed to know that she was loved, and so I encouraged her, even when she wanted to be left alone. Incredibly, the next day she would raise her flute and begin playing the same faltering rendition of Ode to Joy—no matter how bad it sounded—until, at some point, it started sounding good.
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In 2018, when I traveled to see Pablo Picasso’s Guernica at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, I was frustrated. There were too many people surrounding the masterpiece for me to see it clearly that afternoon; there were too many countries yearning for peace—Syria, Myanmar, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan—in a world that was still so violent. I saw a quiet reserve in their hunched shoulders and pursed lips—had they too experienced violence?—but theirs was not the silence of denial nor the silence of political non-intervention during international conflicts. Their silence was the profound reverence for the spirit of humankind—the spirit of love, like Ode to Joy—that transcends the darkness of evil. Some stretched their necks for a better view of the destruction, while others pressed their bodies against the backs of those in front of them. Parents in the crowd—exhausted from so many questions they could not answer—yielded their space to curious children. Why was something so mean and ugly in a museum? Elderly patrons—the ones who had stopped asking questions a long time ago—bowed their heads and made the sign of the cross. We were all trying, each in our own way, to make sense of the senseless: nearly one century since Picasso brought to life that frantic woman in the burning building, why was she still pleading for the world to save her from the fires of hell? Why were dead soldiers still staring up at a silent heaven? Why were mothers still cradling their dead children in the muddy rubble of war zones?
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On April 3, 2022—one month after I had endured an overwhelming sense of shame and helplessness while listening to Beethoven’s Ninth—the embattled President Zelensky gave a recorded speech to an American audience at the 64th Grammy Awards ceremony in Las Vegas. Imploring artists to use their voices to fill the silence left by the Russian invasion, he said the following of artistic expression as a counter to the silence of war: “What is more opposite to music? The silence of ruined cities and killed people….The war doesn't let us choose who survives and who stays in eternal silence.” Zelensky went on to say that Ukrainians continue to play music; “They sing to the wounded in hospitals. Even to those who can't hear them. But the music will break through anyway….We defend our freedom. To live. To love. To sound.” Insisting that the silence of war—the silence of death, destruction, and despair—can be overcome by the beauty and hope of artistic expression, the Ukrainian president concluded his speech by saying, “…we are fighting Russia which brings horrible silence with its bombs. The dead silence. Fill the silence with your music and then peace will come.”
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Ukrainians have been trying to fill the silence for a long time. In 2018—the year I viewed Picasso’s Guernica—Rob Malley, former Special Assistant to United States presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, said that the conflict between eastern Ukraine and Russia had already claimed 10,000 lives and was an “ongoing humanitarian crisis,” despite diplomatic efforts to reach a peaceful resolution. Four years earlier, on February 21, 2014—and only one day after the Russian annexation of Crimea—the Odessa Philharmonic and Odessa Opera Chorus organized a flash mob that performed Ode to Joy at the Privoz Fish Market. Mingling with the bustling voices of shoppers and store owners, a single musician with a double bass began playing Beethoven’s music in a crowded aisle while men scaled fish on butcher blocks. Seemingly out of nowhere—from dark doorways and hidden alleys—choristers raised their voices and musicians played their violins, bassoons, clarinets, and flutes. They performed Ode to Joy because they knew their lives depended on it. They performed it until the call for peace and brotherhood was undeniable; everyone in the market stopped what they were doing to listen.
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When my daughter eventually learned to play Ode to Joy, she insisted that I listen to her play while we were eating dinner or about to leave for an appointment. She made a joyful noise, even if her audience was my elderly mother whose unbearable screaming had once filled the silence of my childhood home. My daughter played Ode to Joy on our front porch as the wind blew through her hair. She played it on the sidewalk as curious neighbors strolled past our house. She played it in the cool darkness of our basement and in her pajamas before she curled up to sleep. She would play it to anyone who would listen to her—every single doll and stuffed animal—because she knew it was important; influenced by her undeterred passion, I have learned to tell others that I love them because my life depends on it. I now say I love you, even if it sometimes comes out wrong or makes me vulnerable to harm. I tell others that I love them, even if—despite every effort to form my words like a small child—no one will listen.
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On February 25, 2022, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine—and only two days before I attended Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Chicago—Russian conductor Ivan Velikanov expressed brotherly love with great courage and conviction, despite considerable risk to his career and the likelihood that no one would listen to him. Scheduled to perform Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in Nizhny Novgorod—one of the largest cities in Russia—the composer gave a short speech pleading for peace at the beginning of the concert. Then—in defiance of his country’s invasion of Ukraine—Velikanov led the unsuspecting orchestra in a performance of Ode to Joy. He later admitted that he did this because he sensed a “heavy, depressed mood in the auditorium the night before,” and because he understood the shameful irony of “playing cheerful and lively Mozart while bombs and rockets whistled through the air—no matter who fired them.” When asked why he chose Beethoven’s choral finale, the young and once rising conductor—who was later removed from his position at the Russian theater—said the following words that reflect President Zelensky’s call for music as an antidote to violence: “…war is incompatible with life and art, and nobody expressed this idea better than Ludwig van Beethoven.” He concluded by saying, “Ode to Joy is a universal human symbol of peace: ‘Be embraced, millions!’—What could be misunderstood here?”
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After attending the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, my daughter stopped playing Ode to Joy. She no longer insisted that we listen to her play at the dinner table or on the front steps of our house. Her flute remained abandoned on the floor of her bedroom—often buried under dirty clothes—or with piles of shoes and backpacks in our dark coat closet.
Most likely she stopped playing Ode to Joy—or any music, for that matter—because she lost interest. She had already studied Beethoven’s life and performed a solo of Ode to Joy at a school concert. She had even heard the music performed by one of the most highly regarded symphony orchestras in the world. Perhaps she thought that Beethoven’s music was no longer a challenge, that the measures were too simple and best left for beginning flutists. Maybe she thought that there was nothing left to learn.
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President Zelensky’s recognition of the importance of music has taught me that when I am united in brotherly love—a distinguishing characteristic of Ode to Joy—I am also united in sorrow. Artistic expression helps humanity achieve this sacred union, particularly with Pablo Picasso’s anti-war masterpiece. While some might say that it is absurd to compare the horrors of Guernica with Ode to Joy because Picasso's painting is the antithesis of Beethoven’s vision of a united world, these two masterpieces of the human condition are actually interconnected; chiaroscuro—or the use of strong contrasts between light and dark to model a figure in art—cannot be fully comprehended unless they are experienced together. I will never truly appreciate peace and freedom unless I have experienced war, but when I bore silent witness to Guernica in that crowded gallery in Madrid, I was surrounded by oddly familiar strangers; we had all experienced some form of violence in our lives—if not exploding bombs, then angry words and slammed kitchen cabinets. In that moment, we were all—regardless of our religious beliefs, ethnicities, or cultural backgrounds—united in peace.
At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, President Zelensky also seemed to acknowledge the ease at which evil recreates itself in new and shocking forms of violence. With this understanding, humanity must be equally imaginative and unceasing in its creation of new and astonishing forms of love. There is no better way to do this than through music—as Zelensky has suggested—or any of the fine arts, for that matter; Ode to Joy accomplishes what seems impossible for peacemakers. It moves from disorder to order, darkness to light. Sound emerges from silence and is granted life.
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As we begin 2025, it is difficult to listen to everything going on in the world. Sometimes it is all too much; the never-ending natural disasters, senseless loss of life, and—at least for some people in the United States—the uncertain consequences of a presidential election. I often go through the motions and stop paying attention to the news, but I am still inspired by the determination and perseverance of Ludwig van Beethoven. When he first conducted his Ninth Symphony on May 7, 1824, he was almost completely deaf and yearned for what Phillip Huscher once described as a sense of community “against personal loss, loneliness, and the terrifying sense that he always felt somehow apart.” The composer had slowly begun losing his hearing at a young age until he was so deaf on the night of the premiere that the musicians were discreetly instructed to follow the direction of the concertmaster instead of him. Despite the appearance of beating time and turning the pages of his score, Beethoven most likely heard nothing of his own music that evening. When his audience finally burst into applause at the end of the performance, Beethoven could not even hear that he had a standing ovation. Huscher says of the recognition, “He stood, his back to the crowd, leafing through his score. Only when the contralto soloist, Carolyn Unger, placed her hand on his shoulder and gently turned him around, did he see his public applauding wildly.”
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Two hundred years since the first performance of Ode to Joy, and nearly a century since Pablo Picasso painted Guernica, I believe President Zelensky when he says that artistic expression will help bring peace to the world. Through the creative process, art bridges the gap between war and peace, between reality and dream. Because art has little regard for political ideologies, cultural differences, or the geographical boundaries between countries, it offers a safe place to imagine a better world; a place to begin discourse on difficult topics when we have neither the experience nor the vocabulary—no functional schema—to do so on our own. Let me be clear: There is no mistaking the purpose and placement of the woven tapestry of Guernica that hangs outside the entrance to the United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York City. There is no mistaking the purpose of teaching Ode to Joy—regardless of its famously simple melody—to young children who are learning to make sound for the first time.
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On February 27, 2022, when I listened to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, I knew very little about his beautiful music, and I certainly knew even less about peace. I did not know that Ode to Joy was a symbol of unity and brotherly love around the world. In 1984, Beethoven’s score was played in honor of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and it has been the anthem for the European Union since the end of the twentieth century. I didn't even know that when I visited Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Riccardo Muti had already dedicated a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to the people of Ukraine on February 24, 2022—the first day of the Russian invasion—when he turned to the audience and said, “We make music that means joy and peace. But we cannot play this symphony dedicated to…joy and brotherhood without thinking…of [the] people of Ukraine….Joy without peace cannot exist.”
Beethoven will never know that Riccardo Muti invoked his famous symphony to fill the silence of war. Beethoven will never know—and President Zelensky was probably not even aware—that on March 10, 2022, Ode to Joy was simultaneously radio broadcast around the world in thirty-three countries, honoring Ukraine’s struggle to uphold freedom and democracy. I certainly did not know that when I stood with my daughter and thousands of others in thunderous ovation at the end of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Ode to Joy during that dark winter of 2022—even as Ukrainian children were likely biting down on sticks, terrified that the next exploding bomb would rupture their eardrums, or worse—I was doing what I could to fill the silence.
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Now that Ukraine’s future is even more uncertain as a result of the United States presidential election, and many are uneasy about the future of our own country, perhaps President Zelensky’s call to fill the silence also has to do with musical harmony; against all reason, sometimes differing sounds can be played simultaneously to produce a unified effect. I hope that my daughter will someday play Ode to Joy again, but she may have to play alongside those with whom she disagrees. She will need to measure her breath so that the notes continue to flow. She will need to take a deep breath, correct herself, and try again as if she were a very small child forming her first words. It will take courage. She will need to be praised for whatever harmony she can produce between disparate notes, because she will be scared—like we all are when life is dark, difficult, and seemingly hopeless—that she will not make sound at all.
Nonfiction
Listen to the Silence
by Jean McDonough
(Continued)
January 2025
Jean McDonough
Woodstock, IL, USA
Jean McDonough is a school librarian who is working on a collection of nonfiction inspired by Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica.” Her essays have been published in journals such as Colorado Review, Catamaran, and Water~Stone Review.