Vignettes from Amsterdam - A Beethoven Concert At The Concertgebouw
Ever since I heard the recording of Mahler’s 3rd symphony by The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailley at The Concertgebouw, I’ve wanted to experience a large symphonic work live there. Attending a performance at The Concertgebouw was therefore a big part of our recent Amsterdam visit.
Vignettes from Amsterdam - A Beethoven Concert At The Concertgebouw 1
Vignettes from Amsterdam - A Beethoven Concert At The Concertgebouw 2
My wife and I reached there in the noon and fished out their concert catalogue from hundreds of colourful brouchures placed in a rack near the ticket counter. While the catalogue was in Dutch, western classical music is a language almost as universal as science or mathematics and we had no difficulting figuring that a performance of Beethoven’s 2nd and 3rd symphonies by Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Bernard Haitink was scheduled that very evening. The price of the ticket [€ 46 for the most basic seat] almost gave me a pause. The fact that my wife isn’t a western classical aficionado and therefore finds it extremely hard to part with that kind of money for a live concert didn’t make it easier. Better sense prevailed and it was decided that I was to attend it alone.
I went to the ticket counter and enquired about the program. To my surprise, the lady at the counter told us that the Beethoven concert had already happend yesterday and tonight they only had a Lizt/Chopin recital. I frantically started turning through the pages of the catalogue to locate the schedule for that night but before I could get there, a young, bespectacled gentleman (who reminded me a lot of Bill Gates of 20 years ago) standing at the adjacent counter intervened and informed the lady that indeed the Beethoven concert was scheduled for tonight because he was playing in the orchestra! He was there to get tickets for the afternoon concert which we gladly let him pick from our counter.
At The Concertgebouw, people under 30 (‘young people’) get a discount on western classical concert tickets. The ticket counter lady asked me if I was under 30. Before I could answer, she looked up at my face for 5 seconds and shook her head dismissively - ‘nah you are not’. I must investigate what gave it away - whether it is those grey strands of hair that have begun to appear in my sideburns or if it was my grizzled weekend look. Having thus secured what must have been the most expensive concert ticket of my life, I went back to the hotel and started waiting for my encounter with Beethoven.
A great thing about the concert ticket was that it entitled me to a free ride in a tram to and from The Concertgebouw and a complimentary drink once I reached there. I was as nervous as I am before catching a flight and reached The Concertgebouw some 30 minutes before the performance. A lot of people had already started queuing outside the entrance to the main concert hall. While most people were dressed in their best formal attire, I was in my jeans, sneakers and a jacket that even I consider a little on the dowdy side. I must’ve looked like a tramp who had found a ticket on the road and had sauntered in to stay warm. I might sound a little crazy but it was my personal tribute to the man whose music we were all there to experiene. Beethoven was notorious for his unkempt, slovenly appearnce and his biographies are littered with various anecdotes that allude to it.
My seat was right at the bottom of the elevated stage where the orchestra performs. From where I sat, I would have barely any view of the orchestra - may be half the violin section, a couple of bassists and the conductor. But then I was a here for the acoustics not for the views. In front of me was one of the doors from where half the members of the orchestra would come out and climb up the stage. I could hear random snatches of violins being tuned.
What followed is impossible to put down in words. Both the symphonies were beautifully performed and all that I had read about acoustics of The Concertgebouw was every bit true and then some more. All I can say is that those CDs will always sound like an inferior imitation of the real.
The average age of the audience must be 65 or more. This being a cold and rainy January, every one had some kind of minor flu. People would sit tight during the performance but each time the orchestra would pause for a short break between two movements a wave of coughing would break out throughout the hall. The orchestra would wait for it to subside somewhat and then begin - at which point the music will take over again. The orchestra (with the notable exception of conductor Haitink) was relatively young but clearly everyone had a solid mastery of their craft. And yes, our saviour at the ticket counter this afternoon was a violinist.
Vignettes from Amsterdam - Bicycles
You’ll find bicycles everywhere in Amsterdam and indeed in the Netherlands in general. If you see a wall or half a wall, chances are you’ll find bicylces propped up against it.
Cycles everywhere
And then there are ways to park even when you cannot find a wall.
There are ways to park and there are ways to park
If something can support a bicycle, it will
Cycling is actively encouraged too. There are dedicated lanes for cyclists and at places even dedicated traffic signals. It is also common for supermarkets to have a section dedicated to bicycle spares and DIY kits.
We were visiting Amsterdam in January - the weather on most days was cold and windy. While we were having a hard time getting to use our limbs properly from under multiple layers of clothing, the cyclists seemed to have no problems maneuvering their bicycles. Even rains weren’t much of a deterrent. As someone who hasn’t yet learnt to cycle, I could only look at people who cycled with an umbrella in one hand and the handlebar in the other with a blend of wonder and envy. Other brave souls cycled while chatting on a cellphone in one hand. Fortunately I didn’t come across anyone accomplishing the unique feat of cycling with an umbrella in one hand and a cellphone in the other or my self esteem would now be that of an amoeba.
While for most people bicycles are nothing but practical means of getting from one place to the other, for others a bicycle is a personal artifact that bears a stamp of their personality.
Custom handlebars
I’ve been thinking about my resolutions for this year. May be learning to cycle won’t be such a bad start.
You can leave them standing anywhere
At the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati
On a visit to the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati, I couldn’t get the song The Lonely Goatherd from The Sound Of Music out of my head. To think that such beautiful creatures will be sacrificed in the prime of life breaks my heart.
Basking in the sunshine
The goat king
The pigeons thankfully didn’t look like they were for sacrifice, but then they didn’t look like they were in the pink of health either:
Pigeons
Finally, there was one religious gesture that seemed like it wouldn’t harm any animals:
Bells
That nagging feeling
Time is flying away faster than I can comprehend. Past seems too distant. Future - even distant future - seems uncomfortably close.
This passage from Huxley’s Eyeless in Gaza does a better job than I can myself:
You’ve only been in the world for about seven thousand days together; and one has to have lived through at least ten thousand days before one begins to realize that there aren’t an infinite number of them and that you can’t do exactly what you want with them. I’ve been here more than thirteen thousand days, and the end’s visible, the boundless possibilites have narrowed down. One must cut according to one’s cloth; and one’s cloth is not only exiguous; it’s also of one special kind - and generally of poor quality at that. When one’s young, one thinks one can tailor one’s time into all sorts of splendid and fantastic garments - shakoes and chasubles and Ph.D. gowns; Nijinsky’s tights and Rimbaud’s slate-blue trousers and Garibalidi’s red shirt. But by the time you’ve lived ten thousand days, you begin to realize that you’ll be lucky if you succeed in cutting one decent workday suit out of the time at your disposal.
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La
The reason why we were back in Ladakh withn 8 months of having been here was because a visit to lake Tsomoriri had eluded us the last time. Thanks to the unexpected snowfall in and aroud Leh, that wasn’t going to change this time either. But in Ladakh, the journey is often as rewarding as the destination. With Tsomoriri beyond our reach, we decided to simply drive down as far as we could in the general direction of Taklang La Top. During summers the road traffic from Manali comes into Leh from that general direction. It would be 3-5 weeks before those roads would open and that meant we got practically no traffic on the way.
The mountains just a few kiliometers after leaving Leh rank in my mind as the most interesting creatures of their species. Having travelled all around Ladakh, we were already used to barren landscapes, but these sharp and jagged ranges that we were passing through seemed downright hostile to any life. They came in different colours too - while the more ‘earthy’ shades of brown and ocher are all too common, the colours here had a decidedly mauve tint to them.
Once we were past these mountains, we saw the first, reassuring signs of life in a herd of yak grazing on a patch of pale grass.
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 1
While it was cloudy and cold, it was by no means cold enough by yak standards. Indeed, one of them stood on a small sheet of snow - meditating, drawing in the cold.
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 2
A few minutes’ drive from the yaks, was a small farming community tilling their fields and sowing wheat. They used horses to pull their ploughs instead of the more common oxen. After a short conversation between our driver and the people here, I was invited to try my hands at sowing wheat (which basically involved throwing a fistful of grain at a patch of just-tilled land). Awkard and touristy as it was, I handed over the camera to the wife, and joined in with a childlike glee. It hardly took anytime for me to realize that this wasn’t the job for me. I took possession of the camera again, and clicked a few pictures.
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 3
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 4
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 5
As we continued our journey towards Taklang La, the landscape turned desolate once more.
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 6
The valley of farmers grew distant and the road began to go loop around a mountain. Soon the condition of the road deteriorated to a point that it was impossible for us to drive any further. We got off our car and walked for a bit. We spotted a flightless bird and our driver, seeing our interest, offered to catch it so that we could photograph it. I misunderstood him as offering to catch the bird so that we could cook it and was quite taken aback - not that I would’ve approved of him catching it for something much less sinister like photographing it either. Fortunately, the bird was not flightless in the same sense as penguins and ostriches but more like hens are. It swooped down into the valley and drifted far away from us.
On our way back we stopped at a river which was still nearly frozen. It can be a bit unnerving to stand on a large water body - probably not the best place for reflecting on the meaning of the English phrase “on thin ice”.
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 7
For the remaining journey to Leh, we took a slightly different route. We saw endless fields on either side of our road that had rows upon rows of pylons that ran all the way to the distant snow-capped mountains. The sight might not be as majestic as the Taj or the Pyramids it evokes the same awe.
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 8
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 9
The weather had now begun to turn gloomy. We came across a monastery that stood atop a small hill in the shadow of a large mountain. Dark clouds hung low over the mountains but the monastery caught distant light that seemed to impart it with a radiant glow. Moments like these necessitate the invention of the device that we all call God, for even atheists like me are moved enough to seek someone higher to thank.
Ladakh in April - Day 5 - A Drive to Taklang La 10
Well, this conculdes my travelogue from our visit to Ladkah in April. I thought that this grand saga would remain unfinished in the same vein as Schubert’s 8th symphony, Duke Nukem 3, Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and more recently, Textmate 2. I’ve tried to fit my photos into the narrative rather than the other way around, so expect to see some more photos from this trip in the coming days.
