OF the many mental images that linger from 48 hours in Pyongyang, this one came hours before the New York Philharmonic ended its most unusual tour last week.
In a gleaming theater called the Moranbong, dozens of sober-suited North Koreans ― certainly specially selected for the audience ― sat in rows watching a Mendelssohn Octet performance with four Philharmonic members and four local musicians. They stared ahead impassively.
But in the back row, off to the side, one young man pored over a miniature score.
It was one of the few moments on the trip when someone other than the state orchestra musicians playing in a special rehearsal with Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic music director, seemed genuinely interested in the music.
Of course, it was difficult to guess what people in that closed country were thinking. The stringent controls on movement, imposed by a phalanx of government minders, made it impossible to speak to ordinary North Koreans. They probably would not have said much anyway to citizens of a country long demonized by the authorities.
The size of the foreign contingent, with its 105 orchestra members, scores of patrons, their families and staff, and 80 people from the news media, was certainly a unique experience for the North Koreans in Pyongyang who encountered it. That consisted mainly of hotel workers, the staff in the concert hall and at the monuments, people in the grandiose buildings present for official tours and the minders.
The tour also meant an extended glimpse of the country, which rarely admits journalists, for the rest of the world. Hopes ― realistic or naïve ― are that the contact will lead to better relations between North Korea and the United States, despite North Korea’s stalling over its promise to shut down its nuclear weapons program.
“This is a human-to-human experience,” said Katherine Greene, a Philharmonic violist. She told of a conversation with her guide, who talked about how his wife does not cook, and how his mother-in-law does. “All of a sudden you have a basis for how we are the same,” Ms. Greene said. “This is always how it starts.”
Certainly, many of the Philharmonic musicians were moved, particularly by the emotional reaction of the audience to the playing of “Arirang,” a Korean folk song, as an encore to the main event, the orchestra’s concert on Tuesday night. The trip’s most indelible image was of the waves that musicians from the stage exchanged with the audience.
As the vice minister of culture, Song Sok-hwon, said at a banquet, the visit “has made it possible for the Korean and American people to make a big stride in cultural exchanges.”
But what exactly did the message of Gershwin and Dvorak mean to the North Koreans? And how much of it got through? The concert was broadcast on North Korean television (as it was in the United States), but it is not clear how many televisions exist in the impoverished land. And you can’t watch television without electricity, which is often scarce. (The concert was also on the radio.)
During the Philharmonic’s performance, virtually no North Koreans in the audience were seen tapping their feet or their fingers, or nodding in time to the music, or changing facial expressions to match the mood. Half-smiles did break out during the raucously jazzy moments of Gershwin’s “American in Paris.”
Orchestra members said there was even less connection with the audience during the morning dress rehearsal. Several said they tried but failed to make eye contact with people.
Who knows how many music lovers were at the performances. No tickets were sold. A diplomat based in Pyongyang said the government probably chose the audience in some fashion, with members of work units invited selectively.
North Korea does have a strong tradition of music. There is a conservatory in Pyongyang, and the State Symphony Orchestra. At least two dozen conducting students have studied at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna over the last eight years. The state symphony has toured Eastern Europe. (The Soviet influence right after the Korean War brought in Russian musicians, so it was no surprise that the state symphony was more comfortable playing Tchaikovsky for Mr. Maazel than Wagner.) The orchestra is headed for England in September, and North Korean officials are said to be interested in sending it to the United States, if the money can be found.
Much of music’s purpose, though, is propagandistic. A DVD picked up in the hotel gift shop, “Forever With Kim Jong-il,” the deified leader, features a soundtrack of heavenly choirs, celestial strings and martial brass. At one point, it shows images of a military chorus and the state symphony.
“The merited State Chorus of the Korean People’s Army supporting the politics of Kim Jong-il inspires the army and people to greater exploits by dint of revolutionary songs,” the narrator intones in English. “The State Symphony Orchestra has never ceased its performance for scores of years, cherishing the pride in being the first art troupe to perform the ‘Song of Gen. Kim Il-sung’ after Korea’s liberation.” Kim Il-sung is the revered founder of North Korea and Kim Jong-il’s father.
Still, there have been rare moments of public appreciation for Western music. In late 2006, the North Korean state news agency announced that the state symphony had just played a concert in Pyongyang for Mozart’s 250th birthday. “The orchestra successfully presented the peculiar attraction and diverse emotion of music pieces of Mozart through exquisite rendition and truthful representation,” the agency reported. And there were no Western journalists to record that event.
On one count, the Tuesday concert clearly accomplished something. Suddenly, in a way increasingly rare these days, classical music became deeply relevant to the world around it. An orchestra was at the top of the news around the world.
For those who love classical music, Beethoven, Bach and their comrades are always relevant. And in that they might share something with the lone North Korean following his miniature score.
