Prufung

I finally feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I passed my Chamber Music entrance audition to the Hochschule yesterday, which basically means that I secured a place in the program for the next two years. Since October, I've been in somewhat of limbo; not knowing if I would stay here longer or not. With the added stress of my Aufenthaelterlebniss (residence permit) expiring on March 31, I really needed to get my Bescheinigung (acceptance letter) in order to submit the proper visa paperwork. It was quite the accomplishment, too, as my poor pianist was stuck in Berlin the night before from a delayed flight from Korea - she had to wake up at 3 AM to take a train and get to Detmold by 8 AM (thank goodness the Deutsche Bahn didn't screw this one up or someone would have lost an eye...). She showed up looking ready as ever, with a pretty grey business suit and heels; her hair was even curled! My quintet also played really well. It's a shame that we've got to stop playing together soon, as Ella will move back to Poland come February 16. At first, I didn't think I'd be writing those words, but after 6 months together, we've started to click as a group. I think this phenomenon of 'finally clicking' in chamber music is why I love it so much. It just doesn't work unless the group learns to move, think, and express as a total unit, and what's more satisfying is often the journey to arrive there. We watched the film K-PAX tonight, with Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. Not only is the film extraordinarily moving, but the music is perfectly set - sort of ambiance/trance styled with piano and electronic mixing. I highly recommend it. Detmold has been beautiful lately, with ample sunshine and not so cold. It's certainly enjoyable weather but is also a bit disconcerting, as we are only in February now and it should be winter. Global warming *sigh* 6 hours of orchestra tomorrow (argh) and more to come for the rest of the week, not to mention my first time properly handling a baroque bow. We'll see how that goes.

Prazak Quartet

On the Prazak Quartet: “It was a kind of virtuosity that does not call attention to itself, but leaves a listener feeling secure that the music is in capable hands. … A hot-blooded, richly textured reading. …” The New York Times And certainly no less than that! Frederika, Annie, and I enjoyed a great evening of quartet music last night with the Prazak Quartet. They played Haydn's Quartet No. 5 op. 76, D-Dur, Smetana's Quartet Nr. 2 d-Moll (not "From My Life"), Erwin Schulhoff's Fünf Stücke für Streichquartett (a sort of post-impressionistic/jazz-like sound), and one of my absolute favorites, Janácek's Quartet Nr. 2, Intime Briefe. Their encores were a Rondo-Zingarese movement from a Haydn Quartet (can't remember which one) and the Finale from Dvorak's American Quartet (also an old favorite). We sat in the back row at first and then moved up to sit second row - I can't even tell you how amused we were! Their facial expressions, interactions with the audience, solos played openly to the audience, smiling, colorful body language, and incredibly musical interpretation was really inspiring. This quartet had a deep and rich sound - I mean, it helps that they play on gorgeous Italian instruments :) but all the same, I felt like even if I didn't agree with every interpretation, the music was played so securely and with such conviction that it didn't matter. There was no pretension, which I've unfortunately often heard with some big-named artists. For them, you could tell that playing in a quartet is an absolute love. They kept smiling at us, so Frederika and I became nervous and thought that they'd recognize us today in the master class, but that wasn't the case. We played for the first violinist & cellist this morning...for three hours! We figured that the class would be in German, but the two of them switched to English because I'm not sure how good their German is. Again, there was no pretense/student-teacher hierarchy - at one point, the first violinist loved how Ella and I were bowing a passage, and he actually noted it down to try in their next concert. I'm starting to really believe that the greatest musicians are also the most humble - sure, there are plenty of jerks who can play brilliantly. But with heart? I don't think that's possible if you yourself are heartless. I asked them about possible summer courses, and the violinist took down my contact info and said he'd get in touch with me about it all. For everyone in the U.S., they are starting a tour of the United States in late Feburary, check it out: http://www.prazakquartet.com/concerts and try to attend one if you can - you'll truly enjoy the music.

Cologne, Bonn, and the Musical Greats

Although it's been a while since I've journaled, I don't even know why I am still awake and writing, considering that my day started at 4:45 AM. Maybe it has to do with all the comfort chocolate I just ate, hmmm. I had my audition for the Pacific Music Festival today in Cologne. I was worried last week after the horrible hurricane-like storms that passed through Germany because I knew that the Deutsche Bahn (German's railway system) was shut down for a night because the weather conditions were so dangerous. There had to be some serious damage done to rails, signals, perhaps even trains themselves, and today's experiences with DB proved that to be true. I arrived at my audition at the Japanese Cultural Institute in Cologne after frantic delays and a crazy taxi drive at 10 AM...the exact time I was supposed to play. The committee was kind enough to give me 35-40 minutes to warm up, and so I felt decent when I walked in to play. Sure, there were things played out of tune and rushed, but I felt that over all, I managed to calm my nerves and control my playing much better than in previous auditions, and that is a lot of the battle with orchestral auditions. Even if they don't offer me a spot for the summer, I'm glad to have properly learned a set of rather difficult excerpts and played a focused audition. It is a bit annoying, though, that the committee assigns super early times to people who've got a long commute. I spoke with one Dutch girl from Amsterdam who had to board a train at 5:00 AM to reach Cologne in time - "I mean, they saw where I was coming from. Couldn't they have given me a later time in the day?" There are a million things you can say like that in an audition situation, and I've decided that most of them just take your concentration away from where it should be. A part of winning is beating all the odds, not just those related to your particular activity of performance. So in some ways, everything is somewhat arbitrary in an audition situation; due to the wandering and ADD-like nature of the human mind, auditions need to be really black and white. The difficult part of the day was over (yay!)so I hopped on a train to Bonn, Germany for a day of paying homage to Beethoven. To create a Beethoven-esque mood, I serenaded myself IPOD-style with Gidon Kremer's rendition of the Beethoven Violin Concerto on the way to Bonn's Hauptbahnhof - even introduced it to the Indian woman sitting next to me (Sushmita, a Bangalorean who studied in London and has a new job in Germany - "help, I don't speak this language!"). Upon exiting the station, I quickly assumed tourist mode (which I haven't done in a while here in Germany)- Lonely Planet in one hand, digital camera in the other and made my way for Munsterplatz. Here lies Bonn's central cathedral, a huge Romanesque + Gothic style building (flying buttresses and all) built on the tombs of Bonn's patron saints - Cassius and Florentius, two martyred Roman soldiers. Directly north of the church is the Beethoven Memorial from 1845, financed mostly by Franz Liszt, the famous pianist and composer. It's a towering monument, greened by time and a haven for pigeons. I am struck by how all the monuments and paintings of Beethoven are usually stormy and possess frightening qualities of inner violence and deep unrest. Yes, his music embodied those qualities, but so did that of many composers. Why do we put Beethoven in a category of his own? If anyone has any thoughts or feelings on this question, please post your answers - I'm curious. Next, I passed a colorful fruit market (the sellers' bargain announcements were oddly reminiscent of chai wallahs from Dadar Station in Bombay - it doesn't matter what language you say it in, I guess) in the triangular Markt Square, where the Altes Rathaus (Old City Hall) stands. It's an elegant building with pink and gold trimming and spiraling staircases. At one time, Bonn was the capital of former West Germany, and so the Rathaus was a symbol of a politically capitalistic Germany. Many UN offices are now located in Bonn, as well as important conference/convention centers. A little ways down from the Rathaus lies a small alley-like street called Bonngasse, and that's where the Beethoven Haus lies. Very inconspicuous and modest, the door stands maybe only 3 inches taller than me and except for a small window display, could be completely passed by as the house of Beethoven's family. For a small fee, you can explore 12 rooms of the house which are filled with displays of Beethoven's everyday grooming products (shaving scissors, quills, even the giant brass ear trumpets he used at the start of deafness) to many of the the instruments that his works were performed on (the original instruments of the Schuppanzigh Quartet are on display, along with Beethoven's pianofortes and organ...and even his viola!). I was a bit disappointed that the documents were mostly facsimiles, but I guess that's understandable considering how valuable they are. Particularly memorable for me was the completely eery "death mask" that the coroner made before his autopsy (they wanted to know why he went deaf so doctors performed an autopsy) - a mold of Beethoven's face after death. You can actually stare right into it; and then only a few feet away lies the tiny attic door and room where Maria Magdalene van Beethoven gave birth to him in 1770. The room has been roped off but you can peer into it, and the spot where a bed stood is now marked by a beautiful bust of Beethoven himself. It was an emotional moment for me, to journey to the beginnings of one of the greatest artists who ever lived. As a family, we often embark on pilgrimages in India to various holy sites of temples and both old/modern day saints, the effects of which stir humility. But that seems like a given - temples WOULD stir humility. To stand in the literal footsteps of a person whom I revere as god-like in ways was equally humbling. Outside of the house lies a peaceful garden with 2 lovely statues of Beethoven, and there is also a new media center where you can listen to all sorts of recordings, from famous conductors, soloists, and people playing the period instruments of the house. There were quite a few Americans visiting the museum, of which I'm not surprised - the Beethoven Haus is Bonn's biggest tourist attraction. I left the house and headed towards the Hauptbahnhof to catch a train to the more suburban neighborhood of Endenich, where an old cemetery holds the graves of Robert and Clara Schumann. A slight detour at H&M made for a good break... I was looking for jeans, nothing more! The euro is not exactly merciful to the dollar right now. I left empty-handed and took the bus to Endenich at Alfred-Bucherer-Strasse, and then had to walk another 20 minutes to reach the Alter Friedhof (Old Cemetery). It is a gorgeous place to walk, with majestic old trees providing graceful canopies and fresh ferns, mosses, flowers, and all sorts of green plants growing on the tombstones and through cracks in the pathways. When coupled with Germany's incessant rain, it makes for a lush and oxygenated place. I photographed Maria Magdalena van Beethoven's tomb (his mother), and read on her tombstone: "Sie war meine so gute Liebenswuerdige Mutter, meine beste Freundin." Or, "She was my wonderfully kind mother, my best friend." I then went to the Schumann's tomb, pulled out the IPOD and listened to Schumann's Piano Quartet, the Andante third movement - it's the sort of thing that makes you teary (especially when Pablo Casals plays the cello solos) regardless of standing in front of a tomb or not. After a few more quiet moments in the cemetery, I headed back to the Hauptbahnhof, and then the real trouble started. I made it out of Cologne just fine, and then about 10 minutes before approaching Bielefeld, the train got delayed 10 minutes....WHY, I have no idea. I missed my connection to Detmold by probably on a few minutes, and hopped on the wrong train. Within 20 minutes, I found myself stranded in a tiny town called Buende with no train for the next 50 minutes - I even asked a cabbie to strike a deal with me - "Guckmal, ich habe nur 10 euros, nicht mehr. Koennen Sie mir fahren nach Herford und dann ich werde etwas machen dort?" (Look, I have only 10 euros, no more. Can you drive me the Herford and then I'll figure out something else there?) He wasn't too happy with that idea, so I stood in below 0 temperatures, waiting 35 more minutes for the next stupid train to Herford. Well, I got to Herford, and there was no train to Detmold - the service was cancelled due to problems with the rail. We had to be driven back for over an hour to Detmold. Whereas I should have been in by 8:20 PM, I arrived by about 10:50. Pissed doesn't even come close. This just goes to show that privatization of public transportation often just DOESN'T WORK. The Deutsche Bahn used to be one of the most efficient train systems in the world, and now it's a cracked up rickety old machine that might as well be one of the Christmas tree trains that kids play with. The owners want to keep more profits for personal use, so they put less into maintaining the railways. I think it will only last for so long - Germans are always complaining about the inefficiency of the train system, and if there's one thing that Germans really dislike, it's inefficiency. So that was my day of traveling. Tomorrow, it's back to routine. So goodnight. Oh, and GO BEARS!! :-)

Shifting Identities

No one informed me that 4/20 on Germany is apparently celebrated on 1/9. I felt like I was walking through a Boston Conservatory dorm hallway as I made my way home from school. I even started feeling a bit loopy after inhaling some of the secondhand smoke. Who would have thought, here in little Detmold... Today, I realized that I am of an ever-changing identity. It sounds like a redundant or obvious thing to say - of course, things are always changing. But consider this: I grew up as an Indian in America and now live in Germany. There are things that I love and hate about all three places. I just need to find a way to feel at home wherever I am. In Chicago, I felt so odd for the first few days; by the time I became comfortable, I had to come back to Germany. Here in Detmold, things feel good but a bit unsettled - it certainly showed in how I played in my lesson today. When I was in Chicago, I missed Boston friends and European friends a lot. Now that I am here, I miss American family and friends. It's all compounded by the fact that I miss Indian family no matter where I am. Basically, I wish I could just stuff everyone and everything into a box and take it with me wherever I go. I think that these feelings only enrich one's life - I wouldn't trade in my "three identities" for anything. I just wish the transitions were a bit easier. Frau Mathe, my wonderful teacher, offered some words of advice: "Make your home your violin. Wherever that is, that's where you are, and be comforted by it." I liked that thought a great deal.

I am back in Detmold now, practicing for some upcoming auditions and also for my own good :) It is nice to see my friends here, and my landlords as well. On the first night I was back, my landlords came downstairs and gave me the warmest greeting. They invited me upstairs to their place where we proceeded to drink champagne and discuss current events, the holidays, the German school system, and anything else on our minds - in mostly German, too! I am quite happy to say that I think my German somehow improved while I was in the U.S. - I have absolutely no idea how, as I didn't pick up a single piece of German reading or any exercises. I'm certainly not going to complain, though! Please enjoy the following article, I found it very moving. And the Orchestra Plays on, Echoing Iraq’s Struggles Johan Spanner/Polaris, for The New York Times A rehearsal of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra; because of frequent blackouts the orchestra often rehearses without electricity. By EDWARD WONG Published: September 28, 2006 BAGHDAD, Sept. 21 — It was music fit for a troubled war. Orchestra Echoes Iraq's Struggles Johan Spanner/Polaris, for The New York Times Karim Wasfi, a cellist and the orchestra’s director, said, “We exist, we perform, we give hope.” Johan Spanner/Polaris, for The New York Times Members of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra in Baghdad. The evening began with the orchestra plunging into the ending of Tchaikovsky’s overture “1812,” the notes of the martial anthem swelling through the auditorium as trumpets and trombones melded with strings in a bombastic climax. But the mood soon darkened for a piece called Requiem, written this year by the orchestra’s conductor. A cello solo, it was slow and mournful and haunting, composed as an elegy for his country. The hundreds of Iraqis and the handful of Western diplomats in the audience seemed hypnotized, as did the burly guards toting Kalashnikovs. “It’s just like a person who’s dying,” the conductor, Muhammad Amin Ezzat, 45, said after the concert, held on a recent evening at a fading social club in western Baghdad. “For quite some time he was smiling. The heart is still beating, but it’s hard to breathe, hard to speak, and he’s close to death.” The sudden shift from the triumphalism of Tchaikovsky to the funereal tone of Mr. Ezzat’s piece reflects the changing fortunes of Iraq and of one of its enduring symbols of national unity: the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. Throughout more than three years of war the orchestra has striven to lift the country’s spirits and give succor through art. But orchestra members are finding that while art can sometimes provide a brief respite from grim reality, it cannot stand forever as a bulwark against the maelstrom of conflict. This summer four members fled to Syria and Dubai, stripping the orchestra of two cellists, an oboist and a violist, and leaving it with 59 musicians. The orchestra is often forced to rehearse without electricity because of frequent blackouts. The rehearsals take place three times a week in the former royal concert hall near the crumbling historic heart of Baghdad, with armed guards surrounding the compound. The musicians are running out of things like reeds and strings, and few music stores remain open in Iraq, partly because militant Islamists have bombed several. Players must worry about offending fundamentalist militiamen and Islamist neighbors. “The circumstances affect us on a daily basis,” said Karim Wasfi, 34, the American-educated orchestra director and a cellist given to wearing buttoned-up black shirts beneath black suits. “But I want to convey that despite the difficulties and problems and instability, we exist, we perform, we give hope.” The orchestra is one of the oldest in the region, Mr. Wasfi said. Its roots stretch back to a string quartet founded in 1939. The earliest incarnation, known as the Baghdad Philharmonic, became a full orchestra in the late 1950’s. Its repertory usually consists of classical European compositions, but it also plays original pieces by its members, including those grounded in Arab musical traditions. Since the American invasion in 2003 the orchestra has performed in the United States, Jordan and Dubai, and it often travels to Iraqi Kurdistan. It played seven concerts last season, some with sponsorship from a Kuwaiti cellphone company. It has scheduled this season’s premiere for Oct. 1, in a theater in downtown Baghdad. The government pays members $140 to $620 a month. Even now, with sectarian strife splitting the country, the orchestra remains a mirror of Iraq’s multiethnic, multireligious society. Playing side by side are Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Kurds, Christians, secularists and at least one follower of the Mandean religion, a Gnostic faith that regards Adam and John the Baptist as prophets. But the shining hopes that these musicians embraced after the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 have vanished. That year the orchestra gave a stirring performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, playing for, among others, President Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Some members were invited to the White House. Now Ali Khasaf, a clarinetist, has to practice quietly in a sealed room in his eastern Baghdad home lest he risk offending conservative militiamen. Mr. Khasaf, 48, lives in Sadr City, the stronghold of the militia that answers to radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Some Shariah courts run by Sadr followers have deemed music to be un-Islamic, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan. “If the neighbors hear the sound, they might not like it,” said Mr. Khasaf, a 25-year veteran of the orchestra. “The popular audience is not like you or me.” Mr. Khasaf is not the only member of his family in the orchestra. An older brother plays French horn; a younger brother, the oboe; and a nephew, the trumpet. Mr. Khasaf’s love affair with the clarinet began in 1973, when he joined the Iraqi Army band. He was following in the footsteps of his older brother, Mehdi, who joined the band 10 years earlier. “I saw it was very beautiful, so I joined it,” Mr. Khasaf said. “We learned from Russian players, German players while I was in the army.” Mr. Khasaf and the other members of his family have to sneak their instruments in and out of their neighborhood. But they at least manage to practice at home. Not so with Izzat Ghafouri Baban, a Kurdish trumpeter who lives in what he calls a “filthy place”: the strife-prone northeast neighborhood of Shaab, also under the sway of Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army. “I can’t practice in my house because I’m surrounded by husseiniyas,” Mr. Baban, 41, said, referring to Shiite mosques that are named after the martyred grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. “Imagine if somebody hears there’s a musician in my home. They’d think I’m against religion.” He squeezes in practice by arriving at the rehearsal hall two hours before his colleagues. “The only thing that keeps us happy is when we see each other,” said Mr. Baban, a stumpy man with gray hair and a grin as wide as a tuba’s bell. “It’s the happiest moment in our lives.” He said he often took a bottle of whiskey home after carousing during practice with his fellow musicians. Once he was driving into his neighborhood when he saw a Mahdi Army checkpoint ahead. He said he knew they would slit his throat if they searched his car and found the bottle. He was saved at the last minute when the militiamen fled from a patrol of American Humvees rolling through the area. Mr. Baban told this story to a foreign visitor just before the start of the concert at the social club. A gangly trombonist named Ali Nasser walked up in a tuxedo and slipped an arm around Mr. Baban. “This orchestra represents the real map of Iraq,” Mr. Nasser, 48, said as Mr. Baban lighted a cigarette. “This man is Kurdish, there’s another man there who’s Christian. This is a real national symphony. The ties among us are unbreakable.” Mr. Nasser, perhaps even more than others, has proved his dedication to music. A baker in the southern city of Nasiriya, he drives or takes a taxi to rehearsals. That is a four- to six-hour drive each way, and soaring gasoline prices mean the trip sucks up half of his income. Even worse, the road runs through the “Triangle of Death,” an area infested with insurgents, militiamen and criminal gangs. Gunmen once shot dead passengers in a taxi just a few cars ahead of him. “My wife says: ‘Please don’t go. Life is very bad in Baghdad. There’s a lot of death in Baghdad,’ ” he said. “She tries to prevent me from coming, but I have to come. We can’t survive without music. It’s like oxygen.” Survival — not disintegration — still provides the artistic inspiration, at least for now. That became evident as the final notes of Requiem, the elegy for Iraq played by Mr. Wasfi on his cello, drifted through the social club that recent evening. The piece was mostly in a minor key, striking a mood of loss, but the last notes were in a vigorous major. The message was clear: Iraq was still alive.