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17 May 2005
A tale of two Bohemians
Last Saturday, Chaitanya and I attended Pasadena Symphony Orchestra's closing concert for the season. Perhaps it was that I had been cloistered for far too long a time but this was the biggest accumulation of affluent-looking Caucasians I had encountered since my last trip to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium to attend the PSO's previous offering (which incidentally featured the sensational Ju-Young Baek about whom I have waxed eloquently earlier). Other than the gentleman seated next to us who left at the stroke of the interval bell, I seemed to be the only person with a T-shirt on but having weathered previous such occasions at various other concerts, I had grown accustomed to it.The best sounds coming out of an orchestra are the ones at the very beginning when the concertmaster solemnly looks at the orchestra and provokes a rising crescendo of perfectly tuned instruments each joining in the procession of averred notes after a fine servicing job from their respective players. One could be forgiven to think that at the climax of this harmonious concordance of sounds, a giant gash would tear through the backstage screen and water would surge forth into the auditorium -- such is the power of music at those moments. The notes however peter out and resounding applause replaces them as the conductor, Jorge Mester arrives with baton in hand. There seemed an odd negative correlation between appreciation for good music and appreciation for good humour that night as the audience was bursting in peals of laughter when the maestro mentioned that the main piece to be performed that evening, Gustav Mahler's "Titan" shared its name with one of Saturn's moons which was an odd co-incidence seeing as JPL was one of the co-sponsors of the concert. This fact had already been noted in the program that everybody with the exception of the two of us seemed to possess a copy of and which they carefully placed by their side not wishing to distract the odd musician who chose to look away from his music sheets.
The concert's first piece was a brilliant set of two Slavonic Dances, opp. 46 and 72, composed by Dvořák. Something that both Chaitanya and I noticed was that in most Slavic/Balkan/Bohemian compositions, the triangle as an instrument is inveterately used. The Slavonic Dances were no exceptions and it was quite a treat to listen to the triangle, and partly to locate the player from amongst the riff-raff of all the other musicians. The audience cheered and applauded every pause and the maestro enthusiastically turned away from his ensemble and acknowledged the audience. The Orchestra starts its fund drive during its recess. Within minutes of the interval at 8.30pm, the air outside saturated with invisible vapours of nicotine. After we returned to the hall and I satisfied the curiosity of a woman seated next to me about whether Caltech works on a semester or a quarter-based system and which she promptly relayed to her lady-friends on her right, Mahler's Titan commenced.
I somehow weighed down my expectations about the piece and that placed me in good vantage position to enjoy it whereas Chaitanya preferred the first piece more than he preferred Titan. There were no hallucinatory images of Saturn or its rings and moons that clouded my vision as the strains of the violins and the harp drifted my way, but by dint of its evenness in pace and tenor Mahler soon moved me from ennui to sit-up-and-take-notice. One particular interlude in the composition resembled, perhaps not unwittingly, the minimalist music accompanying Bengali avant-garde movies about CPI(M) activists slowly walking the streets of Calcutta with a jute bag slung over their shoulders as they are overtaken by human rickshaws. The song ended in its usual flourish and in spite of my first prolonged standing ovation for the orchestra, and in spite of a numerous other protestations that ranged from catcalls, whistles and shrieks to Bravo! Awn-core! Awn-core! coming from the better-dressed ladies and gentlemen, the band decided to call it a day and so did we.
