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         Goodness gracious, it's May already!   How did that happen?  I think the month has snuck up on me because our weather has been so cold.  Hard to think of summer while huddled in a multi-layers of sweaters.
          My other excuse is Beethoven -- the composer, not the dog.  I sing in a choir that has performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with our local orchestra.  Rehearsals have been intense.  Sometimes I think Beethoven hated singers.  He has us at the top limits of our vocal range all the time!  Beethoven is a sad figure in many ways.  He longed for love, but was spurned, one woman telling him he was "ugly and half mad."   He was deeply committed to his family and took on the guardianship of his nephew, only to have the young man turn away from him, even attempting suicide.  But, or course, the great tragedy of Beethoven's life was his deafness.  A composer, a man who made his living and his life by sound, could not hear.  At the time he wrote the Ninth Symphony with its glorious Ode to Joy in the final movement he was completely deaf.   He could not hear one note of his masterwork, nor the applause from an ecstatic audience.  I hope he could at least feel the vibrations from the timpani, a physical connection, however slight, to his most powerful creation
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