I hadn’t heard it in a while, and I caught only fragments on my drive to and from the post office last week. But there it was, the syncopated rhythm of the second movement on the way there and, on the way back, the first strains of the fourth movement.

Today is the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, and he will be well-represented on the radio —just as he would have been thundering through the concert halls, if those were open. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a way to hear his Ninth Symphony today, too.

But I doubt it will compare with last week’s performance. After arriving home, I rushed out for a walk, headphones in, classical station blaring, so that I could move through space as that sublime music moved through my brain. 

There was the first “Freude!” “Joy!” The soloists’ voices entwined and melodious, the pulsing timpani and the chorus filling my head with sound. And in that way, the ordinary walk became a celebration of life.