Supporters of the NACO's nationwide education initiatives may sometimes attend the rehearsals of concerts taking place at the National Arts Centre, so yesterday morning I managed to get my mother and me into the two-hour rehearsal of Brahms' Violin Concerto and 2nd Symphony conducted by Zubin Mehta, a Parsi from Mumbai, although I expect he also thinks of himself as Viennese, having studied there (under Hans Swarowsky) with Claudio Abbado and Daniel Barenboim. He is obviously a good friend of Pinchas Zukerman, yesterday's soloist in the concerto, who is also the NACO's usual conductor.
The rehearsal was as good as a concert if not better. We had an unobstructed view of the orchestra from where we sat and observing the interactions of the conductor and instrumentalists (Pinchas Zukerman's glamorous wife among them), the orchestra less inhibited and more relaxed than in performance conditions, we also had a good view of their personalities, Yosuke Kawasaki for example, the new concertmaster from Japan, playing in dramatic style, rising from his seat at every surging passage in the music. We heard both works all the way through—none of the listeners could help applauding at the end as each one finished with a mighty flourish, con spirito.
It occurs to me that I'm to lazy to attempt a description of the music we heard and that the modern cult of personality in the music world might simply stem from the fact that journalists, always in a rush, find it so much easier to concentrate on the performers, to the detriment of the music that's performed. The music itself and the way it affects a listener is very difficult to put across in words.
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