Aside from the obvious irony of playing joyous classical music over a sci-fi disaster scene, what explanations can you guys imagine that are reasons for the 9th symphonies use in Q?

Because it was used in NGE.

And in NGE, classical music in general fit rather well for multiple reasons. From having religious context and aesthetic, to fitting with themes of Instrumentality and personal enlightenment, and lending itself to the deconstruction of the medium of animation.

Interestingly, Ode to Joy is associated in Japan with the turning of the year. This might have some straightforward symbolic connotations in Eva, but I'll leave the massaging of this angle to others.

Reasons for Beethoven:

1. Beethoven

2. See #1.

In all honesty, the way the lyrics in Beethoven's 9th play interestingly with the rest of the choral lyrics in the ret of the musical score. Rei's introduction has music that sings of God's creation, while AAA Wunder's first flight is hailed with a choir singing of Humanity's strength. Beethoven's 9th sings of Humanity discovering enlightenment through finding Divinity, whereas the song directly following it sings of humanity terrified of God's wrath.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Beethoven's 9th sings of Humanity discovering enlightenment through finding Divinity

That sounds awfully similar to Seele's plan for Insrumentality as Kaworu described it as old life being sacrificed to create a new race blessed with the Fruit of Life. Could this joy the music describes be Seeles, where they feel that mankind gaining the FoL is a form of divinity that will grant them enlightenment? After all, Fuyutski described 4I going nearly exactly according to their plan (I wonder what difference swapping the spears really made if that is so?).

^ I believe it does. Whereas the song immediately following it seems to be more about the fear of this plan from Wille's perspective.

I just read the "Ode to Joy" (used as chorus of Beethoven's 9th Symphony) entry on wikipedia. It tells us about a bit about how the Ode to Joy's poet thought about the Ode to Joy, and I think it's quite parallel to Shinji and Kaworu's circumstances.

Despite the lasting popularity of the ode, Schiller himself regarded it as a failure later in his life, going so far as calling it "detached from reality" and "of value maybe for us two, but not for the world, nor for the art of poetry" in an 1800 letter to his long-time friend and patron Christian Gottfried Körner (whose friendship had originally inspired him to write the ode)

If Anno had this on mind when creating NGE, could it be that Beethoven's 9th Symphony was chosen because it might as well be a Kaworu-Shinji's theme song?