SRINAGAR: Music maestro Zubin Mehta conducted a stirring concert by the internationally acclaimed Bavarian State Orchestra from Munich at the spectacular Shalimar Bagh of Srinagar Saturday evening.
The concert began with the Mehta leading the orchestra in concert with Abhay Rustum Sopori’s troupe with traditional Kashmiri instruments and ended with a fusion of Kashmiri folk tunes and western classical music to thundering cheers from the audience.
In a unique setting in the 400-year-old Mughal garden with its magnificent chinars Mehta and his 80 member Orchestra played its full cast of works of Ludwig Van Beethoven, Franz Joseph Haydn and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in front of an invited audience of 1,500 guests, some of whom had come in private and chartered planes from outside the state.
The concert, which started around 5 p.m. and ended at 6.45 p.m., was telecast live in more than 100 countries around the world. It was jointly organised by the German embassy and the Union tourism ministry, with assistance from the Jammu and Kashmir state.
Mehta said it was something “I have waited and dreamt of this moment…practically all my life. And, every person on this subcontinent will agree with that this is where it (concert) should be… “The moment the music starts, a very positive wave goes across this stage to all of Kashmir, to all our friends, to all our critics, and god bless them all, thank you,” Mehta, 77, said before the show began.
In a first, Western orchestra in fusion with Kashmiri folk tunes, which was telecast live around the world, captivated the audience as Shalimar Bagh reverberated with 16th-century melody-queen Habba Khatoons Tsoulhama roshay roshay and poet Rasul Mirs Rind poshmaal gindnay drayi lolo and Lalas wantase chhus sawaal played with grea skill as Sat Rang.
Following it Mehta conducted Ludwig von Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 in C Major (Op. 72b), followed by Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major. The soloist was Andreas Ottl.
After that, the orchestra played Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for violin and orchestra in D-major, op. 35, with Julian Rachlin as the soloist.
Finally, the orchestra came up with a powerful performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, op. 67.
For an encore, Mehta led the orchestra in playing Strauss’s foot-tapping polka Thunder and Lightning.
German ambassador Michael Steiner said: “German and European heritage bows to Kashmir’s people, its beauty and its difficult reality.”
He said he was thankful to the people of Kashmir for this wonderful concert in the land of beauty and grandeur.
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