If I could travel into the past: Beethoven’s 9th.

If I could time travel, I would go to Vienna on May 7, 1824, to the Theater Kärntnertor, and somehow get myself into that concert hall to witness the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

I want to be there when the audience realizes what they're hearing. 

For the first three movements, they're experiencing familiar Beethoven, brilliant, powerful, but still within the bounds of what a symphony should be. 

Not yet aware how immortal what they are hearing will become.

Then comes the fourth movement, and everything changes. 

I want to see their faces when the cellos and basses start that now-famous and iconic and eternal melody, when they begin to understand that something unprecedented is happening.

But what I really want to witness is the moment when the human voices enter. Imagine being there when the first choral symphony in history suddenly explodes into "Ode to Joy." 

The audible gasps, the shifting in seats, the realization that Beethoven has just shattered every convention of what orchestral music could be. 

I want to feel that collective intake of breath when hundreds of people realize they're witnessing the birth of something entirely new.

Most of all, I want to be there for the ending. 

Ludvig Van, completely deaf, conducting with his back to the audience, pouring everything he has into music he can only feel through vibrations. 

He finishes, and there's this moment—maybe a heartbeat of silence before the eruption. 

The audience leaps to their feet, applauding, shouting, waving handkerchiefs. 

And Beethoven just stands there, facing his orchestra, completely unaware of the thunderous ovation behind him.

Then comes the moment that breaks my heart every time I think about it: his assistant gently taking his arm and turning him around so he can see what he cannot hear. 

The great composer, who has just given the world one of its most joyous pieces of music, finally seeing the faces of people moved to tears by what he created. 

The man who spent his life translating the music in his head into sounds he could no longer hear, finally getting the visual proof that his music still had the power to move human souls.

I want to be there to see his face change when he realizes what he's accomplished, to witness that moment when an artist discovers that his greatest work has found its way into the hearts of others despite every obstacle the world put in his way. 

I want to be there to tell him: “Ludvig Van, you will never know this, but you are eternal, immortal, legendary, and you have impacted humanity more than you can ever imagine, Thank you sir”

He won’t hear me of course.

But he’ll get the idea.