The Film

Following The Ninth: In The Footsteps of Beethoven’s Final Symphony, is a documentary film taking us on a cinematic journey across five continents and into the heart and soul of one of the world’s greatest works of art.

Completely deaf and adrift from the people he loved, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony as an act of transcendence near the end of his life, in 1824. Looking into his own abyss, Beethoven wrote his Ode to Joy for himself, for the people of his day, and for all generations to come.

Today, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony resonates still as the international anthem of hope. The Ninth buoyed the protesters in Tiananmen Square, provided solace to those struggling for freedom in Pinochet’s Chile, and continues to fill seats in symphony halls and karaoke bars from  London to Tokyo and Cape Town. Following The Ninth captures the power and beauty of Beethoven’s grand and world-transforming achievement, touching  the lives of people around the world for nearly 200 years.

Beethoven’s Ninth offers beauty in the face of suffering, presenting ideas all can understand:  art allows us to transcend, heal, repair, and bring people together across every boundary that divides us.

The key line from Fredrich’s Schiller’s poem set to music by Beethoven in the Ninth, Alle Menschen werden Bruder (All Men Will Become Brothers) makes this monumental symphony a constant reminder of our human potential for creating a more sensitive and humane connection to everything and everyone around us.

Following the Ninth is a cinematic celebration of the most profound musical testament to tolerance, peace and connection across all borders the world has shared for centuries. A tapestry of cultures, musicality, voices and ideas, Following the Ninth traces an indelible path from Beethoven’s pen to the sights and sounds of virtually every corner of the world where his final symphony has sounded. Join us.

A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR

I fell in love with the Ninth not as a film maker, but as a human being. The music came to me first, and I lived with the Ninth for years before I discovered that the symphony had a grand history in our time. Following The Ninth tells the story of Beethoven and his struggle to create his final symphony, and the resonance of the Ninth as it traveled across the globe, inspiring, challenging, and repairing people as it went, for over 180 years. Here are some highlights of the film.

* When the Chinese military invaded Tiananmen Square in 1989, the students there were playing the Ode To Joy as their anthem of liberation. In the same year, Leonard Bernstein conducted the Ninth at the Berlin Wall, where people were in the process of dismantling this symbol of oppression of the human will for freedom.

*In Chile women marched in the streets under the threat of death during the Pinochet dictatorship, singing their version of the Ninth (Himno a la Alegria The Hymn of Happiness) at the walls of torture prisons. Inside, men and women without hope heard them and knew they were not alone.

* In Japan the Ninth has become a symbol of rejuvenation and national celebration. Performed hundreds of times in December, the Ninth (Daiku) often features 10,000 singers in the chorus, people who have struggled for six months to master the German choral section that Beethoven used for the first time in the history of symphonic writing. And Japan is the only place where one can choose the Ninth in a karaoke room.

* In London the pop/punk artist Billy Bragg (the Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger of England) has been charged with writing an English version of the Ninth’s “Ode To Joy” for our time. And, his version of the Ninth will be performed before the Queen by the London Philharmonic. High meets low, pop sensibility meets the Monarchy in Bragg’s new version of the world’s most famous symphonic music. Bragg will change forever the way the Ninth will be received by a younger generation who will embrace the first “rock star” of the nineteenth century.

As the film moves toward completion, I want to thank all of you who have helped over the over three years I have been consumed with this project. My most profound thanks go to the people who allowed me to share part of their stories on film, and to the many others who offered words of encouragement and safe haven along the road. When Following The Ninth is finished,  I look forward to meeting the thousands more of you who, like me, have been drawn into the world of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth, and have found there an abiding love for the man and his creation.