By DANIEL J. WAKIN Published: February 28, 2008 PYONGYANG, North Korea ― With international attention focused on the New York Philharmonic’s music-making in Pyongyang, it was time on Wednesday for the North Koreans to show what they could do with Mendelssohn, Wagner and Tchaikovsky.
Four Philharmonic string players joined four North Korean musicians for a performance of the Mendelssohn Octet, and Lorin Maazel, the orchestra’s music director, led the State Symphony Orchestra of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the North’s official name) in a brief rehearsal and run-through of the prelude to “Die Meistersinger” and the fantasy-overture “Romeo and Juliet.”
It was billed as a morning of informal coaching, but the North Korean musicians, who had clearly rehearsed to within an inch of their lives, left the Philharmonic delegation stunned by their ability.
“They were fantastic,” Mr. Maazel said as he walked off the stage. “They are a marvelous group, very professional, very together, very focused.” He said the North Koreans were playing from parts annotated with his bowings and expressive markings, and they seemed to have mastered them. “I was just totally blown away,” he said.
In several ways, the session reflected much of the way this 48-hour visit, which ended on Wednesday afternoon when the orchestra flew to Seoul, the South Korean capital, had gone.
While many activities were planned for the orchestra, including master classes, there was little sustained interaction between Americans and North Koreans. The meticulously prepared playing by the North Koreans on Wednesday was in keeping with their efforts to put the best possible face on things and to counter negative images of their country. After numerous reports about energy shortages and no heat, the orchestra’s hotel rooms were stifling. In the face of a recent history of severe famine and reports of malnutrition, the quantity of food laid on at banquets and breakfasts was extravagant.
At the same time, the visitors from New York were left surprised by what they had found.
The sessions took place at the Moranbong Theater, Pyongyang’s most elegant hall. It was built in 1946, gutted in the war and rebuilt. Glenn Dicterow, the concertmaster, and Lisa Kim, violinists; Cynthia Phelps, the principal violist; and Carter Brey, the principal cellist, were joined in second chairs by four North Korean string players, whose names were not released. Zarin Mehta, the orchestra’s president, said three were from the State Symphony and the fourth was a promising young violinist.
They played a polished rendition of the octet to a full audience, which remained motionless and intent, as it did at the concert on Tuesday, which took place at a larger theater. One young man in the last row peered at a miniature score during the performance.
At the end, the four Americans received bouquets, and Mr. Dicterow tried to hand his to the Korean next to him. The North Korean refused. The group then played, without rehearsal, a piece written by a 12-year-old New York school girl, Farah Taslima, as part of an orchestra educational project. Jon Deak, a double bass player and composer involved in the project, told the audience that the girl had offered it to the people of North Korea. “It is a beautiful, brief song from a child’s heart,” he said.
Later Mr. Dicterow said the Philharmonic musicians had come prepared to work on the first movement of the Mendelssohn with the North Koreans and did not expect a formal performance. Ms. Phelps pointed out that she was even wearing snow boots. But from the first measures, it was clear that little rehearsal was needed, and they decided to plow through the whole thing, Mr. Dicterow said.
“It seems like they are complete veterans in this music,” he added. “They are so attuned and sensitive to what we were doing.”
The Americans said the North Koreans played with flexibility and responsiveness, matching their subtle shifts in tempo, bow pressure and vibrato, and used body language to communicate. Mr. Brey called them “consummate chamber musicians” who played without tentativeness. Mr. Dicterow praised the players’ sound, but pointed out that it would be even better with high-quality instruments.
Yet there was little verbal interaction. The two sides had met only minutes before the performance and exchanged few words. At the end, the North Koreans quickly left the area.
Ms. Kim, who is of Korean descent and speaks the language, said she had discussed only a few musical points with the violinist sitting next to her. “We had some eye contact, and we were smiling, which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “It would have been nice” to speak to the North Koreans, she added.
Next, the State Symphony took the stage. A recent report from the official Korean Central News Agency said the orchestra had been founded in 1970, an event proclaimed by its playing of the “immortal revolutionary paean ‘Song of General Kim Il-sung,’ ” in honor of North Korea’s founder and figure of cult worship. It is known for works like “Rich Harvest Comes to the Chongsan Plain” and “The Sea of Blood,” the news agency said, but also “wonderfully performs” European classical music. It has become a “world-famous art troupe under the wise guidance” of Kim and his son, Kim Jong-il, the current leader.
Before the fall of Communism in Europe, the State Symphony made several tours behind the Iron Curtain, said David Heather, who is helping organize a visit by the symphony to England in September and attended Wednesday’s session. He said North Korean officials told him they would like to have the orchestra visit the United States.
“The question is funding, of course,” he said. “There’s a willingness on both sides.”
Mr. Maazel rehearsed by pointing to places in the part of the concertmaster, who told the orchestra where to play, and by singing to demonstrate. In the Wagner, he sought more expression from a violin line and urged the winds to play “staccatissimo” at one point. Normally precise and contained in his conducting technique, Mr. Maazel exaggerated his motions a bit, pointing emphatically at the timpani or tamping down the violins with his hand.
The orchestra sound was harsh, perhaps because the hall was small. The lesser quality of woodwind and brass playing was apparent. The strings played with extraordinary precision and vigor. Many of the musicians swayed in time to the music. The intonation was good.
Except for the harpist, the orchestra was entirely male, although its main conductor is a woman. Mr. Dicterow said an interpreter had explained that the gender make-up followed that of the Vienna Philharmonic in the old days. The conductor, Mun Yong Ho, sat in the audience watching intently, with her arms crossed or chin in hand.
When it was over, Mr. Maazel briefly addressed the players, who responded by clapping and rapping their string instruments with knuckles.
“I told them,” Mr. Maazel said, “that in the world of music, all men and women are brothers and sisters.”
Inviting Western musicians won't help the regime in its latest try at nuclear blackmail.
from the February 28, 2008 edition
By the sound of it, North Korea is coming in from the cold – the cold reality of being a threat. It hosted the New York Philharmonic this week and invited Eric Clapton to play Pyongyang. Now if only it would also sing the song it promised Oct. 3 and reveal its atomic arsenal.
The regime of Kim Jong Il missed a Dec. 31 deadline to make a full and verifiable declaration of its nuclear programs. While it has partly dismantled the plutonium processing plant at Yongbyon – which created enough fissile material for six to 12 nuclear warheads – that work has greatly slowed. North Korea appears to be returning to brinkmanship diplomacy, or extracting food, oil, and money for limited concessions in its nuclear blackmail.
The delay only makes more remote Bush's plan to leave his successor with a North Korea on its way to nuclear disarmament.
Once again, though, US diplomats tried this week to persuade China to arm-twist its small neighbor into living up to its agreements, even as the head of US intelligence suggested the North is still enriching uranium in a secret facility.
And speculation remains that North Korea had been aiding Syria in building a nuclear plant – which Israeli jets destroyed in September – and might still share nuclear know-how and even bombs with other nations or terrorist groups. In 2006, it tested a crude atomic weapon and a ballistic missile, crossing a threshold in nuclear proliferation.
The North says it wants the US to deliver more oil and take it off the list of terrorist states before it proceeds further in disarmament. But the timing of that demand doesn't jibe with the agreement reached last fall by the six concerned nations, which include China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea, as well as the US and North Korea.
Mr. Kim could be buying time in hopes of a Democrat in the White House next year who will give him better terms. His father, Kim Il Sung, wrung an agreement from President Clinton in 1994 to dismantle the Yongbyon reactor, but then the North secretly reneged until caught in 2002. The new pact is designed to prevent such a lapse.
If Kim is playing a waiting game, he must be counting on continuing aid from China and South Korea – aid that his Stalinist regime needs to survive as his people's discontent grows over average monthly salaries of less than $3. Both his neighbors have an interest in stability: China doesn't want a rush of refugees if the regime collapses and South Korea can't afford to absorb millions of impoverished North Koreans.
But those dynamics may be changing. The other nations in the six-party talks have seen the North's duplicity. Japan is rearming and setting up defenses in response to the threat, alarming China and South Korea. And South Koreans have a new president this week, Lee Myung Bak, who takes a harder line than his predecessor and may reduce food aid to the North.
Clever tricks like letting an American orchestra play the US national anthem before a crowd of North Korea's communist elite won't change the basic need to reduce the country's nuclear threat.
Perhaps if Mr. Clapton plays in North Korea, he can sing these lyrics from "Sunshine of Your Love," one of his most memorable songs:
By MATTHEW LEE – 3 hours ago TOKYO (AP) ― Senior U.S. and Chinese diplomats worked Wednesday to lure North Korea back into an international effort to rid the Stalinist state of its nuclear weapons by fine-tuning details of how and when Pyongyang would be rewarded for its actions. The concepts remain preliminary and closely held among a small circle of negotiators, although officials told The Associated Press that one aspect involves setting out a more distinct timetable for Pyongyang to see concrete benefits for completing each phase of the denuclearization process. This could include guarantees of simultaneous action on the part of the United States and its partners such as economic and trade assistance, development aid and diplomatic recognition in return for specific North Korean steps, they said. Arranged on extremely short notice, the closed-door meeting in Beijing came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was wrapping up a three-nation Asian tour during which she sought and won support from South Korea, China and Japan to jump-start the stalled process. After extensive talks on the matter in Seoul and Beijing, Rice unexpectedly ordered her top Asia hand not to accompany her to Tokyo on the final leg of the trip and remain in the Chinese capital for further consultations on fresh thoughts for overcoming the deadlock. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill was to spend at least one additional day in China to flesh out ideas that Rice and Chinese President Hu Jintao discussed at length on Tuesday, officials said. "I thought it was worthwhile for him to continue those discussions," Rice told reporters in Tokyo. "Those will add to our ability to perhaps build some momentum." Rice repeatedly refused to discuss details of what was under consideration, but said all six parties to the negotiations ― the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and North and South Korea ― were looking at how to better "synchronize" the process. "It's a question of everybody moving pretty much at the same time, that would be best," she said. "We need to establish confidence in this phase that there is the prospect for real denuclearization in the next phase." Under a year-old agreement, the North agreed to shut down, disable and dismantle its main nuclear facility and provide a complete accounting for all of its atomic activities, including its transfer of technology and know-how to other countries. In return, Pyongyang's negotiating partners would provide it with fuel oil, remove sanctions, normalize relations and sign a peace regime to replace the armistice that ended the Korean war. The process has been stuck in the second phase, when the North is supposed to disable its Yongbyon facility and provide the declaration. The United States says Pyongyang has not yet produced a full and accurate declaration nearly two months after it was due. North Korea says it has, complains that it has not received promised shipments of oil, and has slowed the disabling of Yongbyon to protest, according to some accounts. Others say the slowdown is technical in nature. Nonetheless, the declaration, which was supposed to be submitted by Dec. 31, 2007, is at the crux of the current stalemate. The United States insists it provide details of North Korea's proliferation activity, including alleged sales to Syria and possibly other nations. Without that, Washington has said it is not prepared to move forward on removing North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism or meet in the six-party grouping at the ministerial level, a key step toward reaching the long-term goals of the process. Frustration has been palpable and Rice's trip was designed largely to gauge prospects for success in the next 10 months as the Bush administration winds to a close. In Seoul, where she attended the inauguration of South Korea's new pro-U.S. president on Monday, Rice was buoyed by his vow to take a harder line in pressing the North on denuclearization. A day later in Beijing, Chinese officials said they shared the sense of urgency in restarting the process. She heard the same in Tokyo, where Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura conceded that the talks were "stalled" but said his government was committed to achieving "an early submission of a complete and correct declaration." Rice's trip coincided with the historic performance of the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang on Tuesday, an unprecedented cultural exchange between the Cold War foes. However, Rice, a classically trained pianist, played down the significance of the event, given the totalitarian nature of the North's secretive, Stalinist regime. "I heard the National Anthem played in Pyongyang. That's special," Rice said. "It's a good thing that the Philharmonic went ... but I don't think anyone should overestimate the impact on the politics of North Korea," she said.
