When Beethoven Conducted What He Could Not Hear

On May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven stood before the orchestra at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna to premiere his Ninth Symphony. He was almost entirely deaf. He could not hear the oboes swell or the timpani thunder. He could not hear the choir rise into the magnificent "Ode to Joy." Yet he conducted with such fierce conviction that the musicians followed two conductors that evening — the official one keeping time, and Beethoven, who poured every ounce of his being into music he would never hear with his own ears.…