Satoshi Akima wrote:

>Robert Peters wrote in reply to me:
>
>>It is no message to heal the world or to or to enlighten the ignorant: it
>>is MUSIC.  When I for one listen to music I do not want to be missionized:
>>I want to enjoy and maybe be moved, that is all.
>
>But this would also be to condemn Beethoven's 9th Symphony:
>
>  Ihr stuetzt nieder, Millionen?
>  Ahnest du den Schoepfer, Welt?
>  Such ihn ueberm Sternenzelt,
>  ueber Sternen muss er wohnen!
>  (Schiller: An die Freude)

Without condemning Beethoven's 9th, I like it in spite of, certainly not
because of, texts in the last movement such as the one above.  ("ueber
Sternen muss er wohnen" ["He must reside above the stars"] indeed!  Humph.)

Walter Meyer