Why is the launch of the GranCabrio an "ode to joy"?

Maserati uses the melody composed by Beethoven to celebrate open-air driving.

By: Eleonora Lilli

Mar 23, 2024 at 7:59am ET

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"Sing as if no one were listening. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching. And drive like the best is yet to come". Maserati is accompanying the launch of the Trofeo version of the GranCabrio with these words and a piece of music that we all know very well: the Ode to Joy. But who fully knows the meaning of this melody?

First of all, it has to be said that the Ode to Joy is not a song, or at least it wasn't born as such. It is a hymn to brotherhood written by the German poet Friedrich von Schiller. His idealistic vision of the development of a bond of joy and friendship between men was set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1823, and today the melody is used to represent the European Union. In short, it's not exactly a "little song".

A hymn to life

The video made for the recent launch of the GranCabrio Trofeo begins on tiptoe. The first sound heard in the video is that of the sea, an obvious reference to the Nettuno engine. Then, indeed, you hear it: the 550 PS Nettuno 3.0-litre V6, which in the launch version of the Trofeo, is mated to an 8-speed automatic gearbox and all-wheel drive.

Ode to Joy begins with a whistle and, after a crescendo, explodes into a rock version that exalts some of the emotions of human life linked to modernity, with the pleasure of driving in the open in mind.

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The creative concept was entrusted to the Naïve communications agency, then developed by the Movie Magic production company and directed by Marco Gentile, winner of a Silver Lion at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity in 2010 and author of international music videos and advertising campaigns.