BERLIN: THE CAPITAL OF MUSIC?

CHETANA  NAGAVAJARA

I arrived in Berlin on Sunday night and did not want to miss my chance of hearing good visiting orchestras as part of the current “Musikfest” (Music Festival). So I asked a German colleague, formerly of Rankamhaeng University and now teaching Thai at Humboldt University, to buy tickets for me in advance. Of course, all tickets for the Berlin Philharmonic were sold out months in advance. But I don’t regret it. Since Abbado’s departure, the orchestra has become very self-conscious and exhibitionistic. It’s an orchestra to be “seen”.

Years ago, Dr. Guenther Haasch, who once taught at Chula, told me — in spite of the fact that he is a Berliner himself — that the Berliners are plagued by local patriotism and only enjoy listening to their own Berlin Philharmonic. So Berlin has become the “capital of music” in the sense that you can always get tickets to hear world-class visiting orchestras. Today a programme played by the Berlin Phil has to be played 3 times. The only chance for a visitor is to queue up for returned tickets or standing tickets. Simon Rattle has been a great success. He too is a conductor to be “seen”.

I have been to 2 concerts already, one by the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the other by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. I already wrote about the Concertgebouw last year. For me It is, beyond any doubt, the best orchestra I have heard in recent decades, very musical, very sensitive, technically flawless, possessing an immense range of sounds and tone colours and equally responsive to a vast range of emotions. The Bavarian Radio is a lesser orchestra, with certain sections, especially the brass, going out of tune at times. (I have an old video of Riccardo Muti rehearsing this orchestra, and he had to behave like a school teacher to get things right. Things have not improved much.)

The critics, of course, being local patriots, had to find way to cut the Concertgebouw down to size. As they could not find any weakness with the musicians, they lashed out very rudely at the Italian guest conductor, Danielle Gatti. The audience (I mean, those who are broad-minded enough to appreciate foreign orchestras) thought otherwise: it gave the orchestra and the conductor a long, long standing ovation. One critic let slip what was at the back of his mind: “Wait till Saturday when the Berlin Philharmonic gives its first fetival concert”. How can a critic be so naive?

I also had a chance to attend a panel discussion by four music critics, all non-Berliners, hence fairly impartial and instructive. Having been engaged with my Thai colleagues in a series of research projects on criticism for over a decade with the support of the Thailand Research Fund (TRF), I am sure that our research teams have built up a fairly substantial body of knowledge and certain theoretical conclusions that can certainly benefit the Berlin critics. Would we have the impertinence to tell them where they behave most unprofessionally and would they have the humility to listen to colleagues from a “failed state” in the Far East? In the afternoon of our next life, perhaps!

Berlin, 7 September 13