Small things in the big picture

It’s easy to get caught up in the endless sweep of travel/play/eat/sleep now that we’re past the midway point in the Tour; there are more than a few bleary-eyed musicians (sometimes it seem like I'm seeing double, like the image above), and creeping exhaustion is getting to most of us. The schedule is tough – get up, eat, travel to a new city, eat, rehearse, change into concert clothes, perform, eat, sleep, repeat. But we’re also gaining a sort of collective momentum from performing repertoire over and over in different venues; what at first was jarring (“this hall sounds completely different from the one last night!”) has become a normal part of our everyday tour experience, and I think Osmo and the Orchestra have been giving fantastic performances.

It’s hard to be away and constantly on the move for so long, and the sense of unsettled unease that can arise from an itinerant schedule is compounded by the unsettled unease of the world these days. Let’s face it; these are uncertain times, and it feels like we are skirting total chaos on a daily basis. And for those of us who, during the tour, tune in to CNN or BBC at the airport or in our hotel rooms, it’s difficult no to get sucked into the vortex (although I’ve always felt that the advent of 24-hour news channels adds to – rather than alleviates – fear).

It’s not lost on me that here in Frankfurt, the financial and commercial capital of Germany and base of many international organizations, the Japanese department store, Mitsukoshi, across the street from the hotel is shuttered and empty – a sign of the times. And throughout our journey, I’ve seen more homeless on the streets since my last extended trip to Europe, just pre-9/11.

I don’t mean to overstate the doom and gloom – it is what it is. What interests me, however, is our role in all of this. So forgive me as I wax philosophical for a bit here.

We’ve been playing mostly in pretty well-sold houses – in particular, last night here in Frankfurt, the house manager said the hall was 90% full. And that simple fact, that amidst everything people still want to come to concerts, tells me something. But it’s the smaller things, the individual reactions, that speak volumes.

In Stuttgart I watched an elderly lady, prim in her widow’s black, listen raptly to the Sibelius Symphony, her eyes darting, as if taking in every detail onstage. In Berlin I watched a music student (at least I assumes he was a music student – unless everyone in Berlin walks around with manuscript paper) quietly taking notes during the Adams. And in Frankfurt I watched a bevy of young girls, thrilled to pieces after the Bruch Concerto, leaping to their feet as a group – a mini standing ovation.

The collective gasp of delight (and in Frankfurt, laughter) after the Adams tells me that the audience really gets it and is feeling the bubbling energy of the piece. The meaningful pause before the wall of applause (and curtain call after curtain call) tells me that the audience has fully taken the journey through the Nielsen Symphony.

I keep saying that concerts are one of the few live communal experiences we have left in our online/Netflix/iPod age, and now more than ever I’m aware of the need for people to gather and share in the very human experience of music. In uncertainty, we become even more acutely aware of the order, beauty and comfort of Art (with an capital “A”), because that’s what represents the best of what the human species does. Trying times will come and go, and as they say, the world keeps turning - but we cannot forget that it’s exactly that best stuff of the human species that keeps us going, what makes life something more than a mere act of survival.

I believe deeply in what I do as a musician, and I believe it even more when I feel the buzzing energy of a crowded concert hall in some far-off land and the inherent sense of commonality amidst our differences, even as half a dozen different languages are bouncing around the room. Our lasting legacy as a species cannot be enumerated simply by imposing edifices or amassed wealth – it is just as much in this organized collection of sound we call music, and its ability to bring us together in a fractured world. And it is this vitally important and uniting work that we have undertaken in our careers as musicians, and the work that we continue as our Tour draws to a close.