Joyce Maier wrote: >... Beethoven's sketches show that he wanted to express the high starry >sky where God is supposed to live by putting notes as high as possible >to that sentence "Ueber Sternen muss er wohnen." Singers often complain >about those notes. I can understand that very well, but here once again >Beethoven stretched the possibilities of the human voice because he >considered the expression more important than those tortured vocal >chords. For whatever reason that section of the 9th finale has always evoked the image of the starry sky to me. I never examined where the association came from. I really don't care. It's a lovely moment that has always meant a lot to me, as so much else does in Beethoven. Bill S