When an agreed ceasefire ended the Korean War in July 1953, a full and final peace settlement between North and South Korea was envisaged. It never happened.
Instead, for the next half-century, the fragile armistice was constantly threatened by the ramping-up of military armament levels and the gradual intrusion of nuclear weapons into the equation. When, in October 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, prospects for a resolution of the North-South conflict seemed more remote than ever.
And yet, behind the scenes, a series of covert orchestral manoeuvres was happening. ‘We have just very recently received an inquiry about the possibility of the New York Philharmonic performing in Pyongyang,’ announced a spokesman for the orchestra in August 2007. The communication, though routed through an ‘independent representative’, came from the North Korean Ministry of Culture. ‘We will explore the possibility of this as we would any other invitation,’ the spokesman dryly noted.
North Korea was extending an olive branch
It was, in many ways, an extraordinary development. For decades, the US had staunchly taken the South’s side in the ongoing Korean conflict, and no American cultural organisation had ever visited the North. But significant advances had been made in limiting North Korea’s nuclear activity, in exchange for fuel and economic assistance. Now the North was extending an olive branch of sorts to its long-time enemy, ostensibly in partial reciprocation.
Zarin Mehta, the New York Philharmonic’s president, was quick to scent the possibilities of the moment. ‘It would be kind of extraordinary for us to play there,’ he commented. ‘If this venture helps in furthering what’s been going on in the last couple of weeks in terms of the normalising of relationships, that would become a wonderful thing for the world.’
'Men in dark suits'
A mere three months later, the North Korea concert actually happened, as an extra date on the NY Phil’s pre-planned tour of Taiwan and China. The venue was the 2,500-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theatre in the nation’s capital where, on 26 February 2008, an audience of ‘men in dark suits’ and ‘women in colorful high-waisted dresses’ gathered to watch the Philharmonic play, with ‘all of them,’ the New York Times reported, ‘wearing pins with the likeness of Kim Il Sung, the nation’s founder’.
On the podium was Lorin Maazel, the orchestra’s music director, who began by conducting the national anthems of both North Korea and the United States. The Prelude to Act III of Wagner’s Lohengrin, Dvořák’s 'New World’ Symphony No. 9 and Gershwin’s An American in Paris were the main works on the programme. But in a country where Western classical music was widely unfamiliar, it was the Philharmonic’s performance of ‘Arirang’, a popular Korean folk song, which made the biggest emotional impression, drawing tears from members of the audience and orchestra.
'A puppet show legitimising a despicable regime’
Not all onlookers welcomed the NY Phil’s visit. British critic Norman Lebrecht derided it as ‘somewhere along the scale of morally inappropriate and aesthetically offensive’, while in the Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout dismissed the entire venture as ‘little more than participating in a puppet show whose purpose is to lend legitimacy to a despicable regime’.
Historically speaking, it is undeniable the Pyongyang concert made no appreciable difference to the hard-nosed Realpolitik which continues to dominate relations between North Korea and the wider world today. But, for that fleeting moment in February 2008, it was possible for those present in the hall, and millions more watching the live broadcast, to glimpse an alternative, conflict-free reality of mutual understanding.
It was ‘an incredible joy and sadness and connection like I’ve never seen,’ said NY Phil bass player Jon Deak. ‘They really opened their hearts to us.’
February 2008 in history
2nd: Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, marries Carla Bruni privately in Paris. The romance has been a whirlwind one, the wedding coming just three months after the first meeting between the French president, who has been married twice before, and the singer and former model, daughter of concert pianist Marisa Borini and composer Alberto Bruni Tedeschi.
11th: Two-and-a-half years after construction began, the Singapore Flyer starts to turn, its height of 165m making it the tallest operating Ferris wheel in the world. Costing $8,888 (c£2,000) each, the first rides are sold to corporate customers before the wheel is opened to the general public on Valentine’s Day, and formally opened in the presence of prime minister Lee Hsien Loong in April.
13th: The world record price at auction for a musical instrument is smashed when a 1741 Guarneri del Gesù violin is sold to Russian businessman Maxim Viktorov. Neither he nor Sotheby’s state the exact sum, but reveal it to be well in excess of the $3.54m paid for Stradivari’s ‘The Hammer’ in 2006. Formerly owned by composer and violinist Henri Vieuxtemps, the instrument was demonstrated by Chloë Hanslip before the auction.
17th: At a meeting of its national assembly, Kosovo declares its independence from Serbia. The proclamation is immediately disputed by the Serbian government. Nor is it universally recognised internationally, with Russian president Vladimir Putin describing its acceptance by some nations as ‘a terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations’.
19th: After more than 48 years in power, Fidel Castro announces his retirement as president of Cuba on the grounds of poor health, stating in a letter that ‘it would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion, that I am not in a physical condition to offer’. Cuba’s national assembly elects his brother Raúl as the new president.