Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Movingly Flashmobbed in Spain

so won­der­ful! the young curly-haired child clad in red, atop the pole, express­es what i imag­ine beethoven meant to con­vey, in a piece that he titled ‘ode to joy’. just love­ly.
(the attrac­tive man in the turquoise but­ton down (whom i am imag­in­ing to be a univ. pro­fes­sor come upon the scene!) exclaims ‘wow’! my feel­ings exact­ly.
thank you for this.

The Ode to joy orga­nized by a span­ish bank? I agree it’s very mov­ing, but it also takes some nerve, if you ask me.
I think the one below depicts much bet­ter the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, and the feel­ings of the ter­mi­nal­ly mort­gaged span­ish cit­i­zen­ship towards their banks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUzaeOEplnc

(you don’t need to know span­ish to get that it’s not a very joy­ful song)

Whether it’s cor­po­rate­ly orga­nized by a bank or a “true” flash mob, it does­n’t dimin­ish the beau­ty of the music or or the delight of the crowd. I thor­ough­ly enjoyed this; thank you for post­ing it and the oth­er links as well.

Many many years ago, my bank brought free con­certs to the locals in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties once a month. When the bank was bought, the music sad­ly stopped. To bring Beethoven or any clas­si­cal works to peo­ple is a gift I wish more com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als would do. This is tru­ly amaz­ing. And to see the hap­py faces on the very old and the very young, and those in between if price­less. Thank you for shar­ing this won­der­ful few min­utes.

So moving,yes I shed a tear and some more. Heav­en­ly music!Look at the faces!

I’ve watched this about 10 times now and cried every time. Absolute­ly won­der­ful. Now that’s a bank I want to leave my mon­ey in :)

What a gift! Thank you for post­ing the link. One only has to look at the faces in the crowd to real­ize that music of this depth and mag­ni­tude cross­es all bound­aries. This same song was sung as I walked up the aisle with my father to get mar­ried and, of course, watch­ing the video brought back those mem­o­ries too:)

One note to add here. How many of those peo­ple wit­ness­ing the event nev­er had the means to have pur­chased a tick­et to the palaces where only the well to do could be privy to view the tal­ent of both the musi­cians and the com­posers genius. Again, I believe we have all wit­nessed a moment in humankind. Ver­i­fied by the over eight mil­lion online views.

Regard­less if this was “paid for” by a bank or not, I echo the sen­ti­ments expressed by most that this is more about the JOY that music brings — a way to tran­scend, for even a few min­utes, the real­i­ties of our chal­lenged times. It gives me a glim­mer of hope for the good­ness and tal­ent in humankind (despite the mess­es we make!), and shows how pow­er­ful a medi­um music can be to touch peo­ple. I, too, have watched and shared this many times and nev­er fail to have an emo­tion­al response — alter­nat­ing between chok­ing up and want­i­ng to jump up and applaud!
Thank you for shar­ing…

I won­der what text the cho­rus was singing. It’s not the Ger­man text by Schiller from Beethoven’s 9th Sym­pho­ny. Was it a Span­ish or Cata­lan trans­la­tion of the text?

It’s in Cata­lan, Joshua.I believe it’s a ver­sion by the poet Joan Mara­gall.

IIt is beau­ti­ful and went right to my heart.I am. Addict­ed to that video .When I am feel­ing down it brings me up.It is a delight to watch.Very much loved. Thank you Bren­da Blake­man Wind­sor Ontario Cana­da.

beau­ti­ful. gra­cias
vaya con Dios

I am from Amer­i­ca, so look at it through those eyes. A BANK did this. Impres­sive. Cor­po­rate? This is what a Euro­pean flash-mob looks like? Not skip­ping around to non-instru­ments bab­bling some inco­her­ence? I am no fan of banks, but this was sur­pris­ing and very nice.

This has to be my favourite flash mob. The music is great. I esoe­cial­ly loved the last part where every­one was singing/playing. The look on the one mans face toward the end said it all. He said. wow and it was a wow. What a won­der­ful thing the bank did by bring­ing every­one togeth­er for this mem­o­rable per­for­mance. Thanks!

Banks lend mon­ey, house buy­ers bor­row it. What’s wrong about that?

The wrong bit is that every­where, banks lend mon­ey they don’t have; it’s bogus mon­ey, cre­at­ed by gov­ern­ment out of thin air. There­fore, it’s too eas­i­ly avail­able and that great­ly increas­es the price of homes. If they loaned out only what they earned, mort­gages would be much hard­er to get and prices would be far low­er.

Im from Amer­i­ca. Have watched it over and over. Amaz­ing. I felt the joy and you could see the joy on all present. Was man in the begin­ing part of the orches­tra? Bra­vo Bra­vo

It some­times brings a tear or three. It is a beau­ti­ful thing, “too beau­ti­ful to fail.” Most yanks may rec­og­nize our 2008 bank­ing deba­cle there. Bra­vo, an excel­lent piece and ENCORE! Vaya con Dios, a bien­tot.

Who was the con­duc­tor for this flash­mob per­for­mance of Ode to Joy? This per­for­mance is my favorite of all time for the great Beethoven clas­sic!

They were singing in Cata­lan, in Joan Mara­gal­l’s excel­lent trans­la­tion.

Joia, que ets del déus gus­pi­ra
gen­er­a­da dalt del cel,
vent de foc el pit res­pi­ra
sota el plecs del teu gran vel.
Si ajun­tar-se el cors dema­nen
que un mal vent va sep­a­rant,
tots els homes s’agermanen
on les ales van tocant.
Si for­tu­na gen­erosa
ens ha donat un bon com­pa­ny
o com­pa­nya gra­ciosa
cantarem amb més afany.