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The Radio 3 Boards > General Chat > News And Current Affairs > Music Amid the Debris
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Author Topic: Music Amid the Debris  (Read 370 times)
Reiner Torheit
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« on: 15:54:30, 21-05-2007 »
A short article about the musicians of the Baghdad Symphony Orchestra, and the difficulties in which they currently work:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=3065714&page=1
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
richard barrett
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« Reply #1 on: 16:25:45, 21-05-2007 »
Further to Reiner's post, here's another one I put on the Violin and Viola thread which might have got missed by some people:

http://www.jonroseweb.com/c_articles_baghdad_violin.html

... which tells the story of one of the orchestra members.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #2 on: 20:18:43, 21-05-2007 »
I presume the same violin is referred to in both stories, Richard?

Unspeakable thuggery  Angry   We never "own" instruments like that, they merely pass through our hands for a period of our lives - they our legacy to the next generation of players (or ought to have been, in this case).
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
richard barrett
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« Reply #3 on: 20:29:41, 21-05-2007 »
It looks like it must have been the same violin, yes. In the comments below the story, though, there seems to be some hope for getting another violin to this player. In a way you have to pity the people who would wantonly destroy such a thing (leaving aside for a moment the human lives they almost certainly also will have destroyed). Their minds must have been brutalised into an inhuman kind of emptiness. Normally I think to myself that the presence of music (among other things of course) in the world is some kind of indication that humanity might be capable of more than self-destruction. But for that to be true people have to be capable of listening.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #4 on: 21:11:57, 21-05-2007 »
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But for that to be true people have to be capable of listening

Do you think?  I understand what you say, but I wonder if the "minimum condition" for music to exist, is for it to be played, as the players too must listen as they play?   Of course, better still if there are others to listen.

I was profoundly depressed to read the story of how the soldiers destroyed his violin...  it's an indicator of deep-rooted malaise Sad
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
richard barrett
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« Reply #5 on: 21:48:56, 21-05-2007 »
Quote from: Reiner Torheit on 21:11:57, 21-05-2007
Quote
But for that to be true people have to be capable of listening

Do you think?
I was trying to use "listening" in a more general metaphorical sense, obviously not very clearly...
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #6 on: 09:06:50, 22-05-2007 »
No, I think you were quite clear, Richard - I was just unable to see the wood for the trees, I think because I was still feeling angry about the way this guy and his violin were treated Sad
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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