What Is Eternal (Narration)

(BEETHOVEN)
 And here in the night
 As I feel the inferno
 I stare in the dark
 Thinking what is eternal
 The man or the moment
 The act or the reason
 These thoughts fill my head
 As I contemplate treason
 Of dreams I have had
 And dreams I have pondered
 When late in the night
 My mind it would wander
 To things I have done
 And then quickly regretted
 While denying vices
 My life had selected
 And I think what I've done
 Or have yet to begin
 And the man I've become
 And the man that I've been
 Now caught in a waltz
 With the eternal dancer
 I'm courted by death
 But death isn't the answer
 I say
 All I was
 Meant to be
 Could I
 Suddenly
 Just decide
 Not a thought
 Would survive
 Could it be
 My life's worth
 Ended there
 With my birth
 If I could see someone
 Who's been there before me
 And traded his soul
 For a moment of glory
 His penance or mercy
 By spirits debated
 While judged on a scale
 That's been heavily weighted
 And what have I done
 Could there be such a sin
 In this man I've become
 In this man that I've been
 Now calling to god
 From the pit's very bottom
 I pray he forgives
 Every sin I've forgotten
 This day
 And who would have thought
 That my fate it would conjure
 This twist in the road
 On which I have wandered
 Each vision and dream now
 Completely dismembered
 To give one's whole life
 And find nothing's remembered
 And what good is a life
 That leaves nothing behind
 Not a thought or a dream
 That might echo in time
 The years and the hours
 The seconds and minutes
 And everything that
 My life has placed in it
 Betrayed
 Betrayed
 Betrayed
 The things I have done
 The places I've been
 The cost of my dreams
 The weight of my sins
 And everything that
 I've gathered in life
 Could it be lost
 Could it be lost in this
 Could it be lost in this
 Night
 (Crushed by the dilemma he finds himself in and unable to reach a decision, Beethoven tries to recall the particular actions in his life that have led to his damnation. In anger, he confronts Fate for having dealt him such a cruel hand in life. Taken a back by his accusations, she offers to review his life with him and to change anything that he wishes to change.)
 (Delighted with this unexpected proposition, Beethoven accepts. When she asks where he would like to start, Beethoven says the first thing he would change is his childhood. Fate takes him back through time where he finds himself as a young child sitting at a piano. He has just been cruelly slapped by a tutor for having failed to receive an appointment to the emperor's court. His tutor is trying to create a new child wonder, similar to Mozart, but unlike Mozart, Beethoven is an awkward and gangly youth. Now, sitting alone at the piano, he is trying to console himself by playing a melody that he finds soothing. Beethoven recognizes the melody as the future Sixth Symphony and sitting down next to the child completes the tune. The child smiles at this kindly adult and after they talk for awhile, asks if they might meet again and finish the song. Beethoven reassures the child that one day that just might possibly happen.)