Stellar show bridges Kolkata-Berlin gap

KOLKATA: It may not have been the ‘real thing’ but it was goose-bumpily close to it. On Saturday night, those at the Max Mueller Bhavan, some 7,000km from Berlin’s ‘Philharmonie’ concert hall, felt that the huge distance had been nicely bridged.
If the Kolkata ‘premier’ of the Berlin Philharmonic, through its Digital Concert Hall initiative, felt eerily ‘real’, blame it on technology, vision and, of course, the mesmerizing music.
The HD transmission and projection, and the highly-developed sound system in the auditorium here, ensured that very little was lost of the original performance, happening real-time in the historic German city. While high-definition clarity had the effect of bringing conductor Andris Nelsons and the musicians cosily close, minutely catching emotions and expertise, it
was the edge the music acquired that really made the night.
Picking up the many nuances delivered by the world class philharmonic orchestra, the sound system filled the auditorium with tone and timbre that were true to their origins. “The feeling was very close to that of watching the concert live in the auditorium where the performance was actually taking place,” gushed guitarist-composer Amyt Dutta. It was a common refrain on this night, during the break and at the end of the concert that went well past midnight.
If ‘re-creation’ was the flavour of the night, it all began with the wine and cheese-and-pineapple cocktail sticks that were served before the concert — just what ‘Friends of the Berliner Philharmoniker’ might have been doing at that time at the Philharmonie in Berlin.
Soon, the auditorium upstairs was, as Dickoo Nowroji of The Calcutta School of Music put it, “a gathering of the faithful”. After Friso Maecker, the director of Goethe-Institut Kolkata, had delivered a brief welcome address, Dr Anita Mehta put the focus firmly on the concert that was coming up. Setting out to discover the “leitmotif”, the common string that ran through the three pieces of the concert, she went on to present an insightful prelude to the Berlin performance.
And, then, the screen went ‘live’ — the musicians and the conductors walking in to thunderous applause, both in Berlin and in Kolkata, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto in E flat major K. 499 coming alive with the articulate Emanuel Ax at the piano and Nelsons conducting with passion and precision that made for a ‘performance’ of its own.
Richard Strauss’ Burleske in D minor for piano and orchestra and his orchestral tone poem ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ (Thus spoke Zarathustra) followed and the two hours passed without anyone noticing. “I hope programmes like this happen more often,” said Sujata Sen of British Council.
“Incredibly goose-bumpy!” was how Bonisha Bhattacharyya summed it up.