Some critics tend to think anniversary programming is unimaginative. Poor old Ludwig van Beethoven, then, who turns 250 this year, and whose work – though never far from our concert halls – will be the bread and butter of many orchestras and chamber ensembles across the globe. When we consider that he was the creator of some of the greatest works in the Western classical tradition, railing against Beethoven also starts to look like pointless iconoclasm. It was therefore refreshing to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra opening its 2020 season with one of the most well-loved of Beethoven’s works, the Ninth Symphony.

Circa Contemporary Circus and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Laura Manariti

And far from being unimaginative about it all, the MSO first invited the celebrated Yorta Yorta singer and composer Deborah Cheetham AO to pen a modern, Australian response to the Ninth. Those familiar with the text of the finale – the Ode to Joy – might be aware of its English translation. The final stanza of Friedrich Schiller’s work reads, in one rendering from the original German: ‘Do you bow down before Him, you millions? / Do you sense...