[also appears in Friday's Arts Blog @ The Guardian]

Watching the NY Phil play the Korean folksong Arirang at the end of their concert in Pyongyang, North Korea was profoundly moving. I first heard the encore on the CNN website before seeing the concert in full last night via PBS feed but the effect was the same each time. Sure, it’s a pretty tune, but I was curious to discover what is was, exactly, that made me so so misty. After all, the land of my ancestors is more enamoured with haggis than it is kimchee, so the song itself has no pre-existing cultural connection.

The arrangement was classic pops (clearly audible tune, multiple end-of-verse key changes, exaggerated ritards, string swells by the dozen and an extraordinarily liberal application of the suspended cymbal), which means I was prone to having my emotions manipulation in spite of myself. In these instances, my brain says no but my soul says yes and the hair on the back of my neck stands up while I’m simultaneously rolling my eyes. Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto always turns me into an unwilling puddle of sappiness. Stupid clarinet solo.

Cameras panning the crowd picked up on audience members singing along, smiling and even getting a little weepy themselves. This was likely a bit of a factor although I’m not much for waterworks so, sympathetic tears usually make an appearance only when I care deeply about is upset.

After mulling this over for a good part of the afternoon, the answer finally came to me: The playing of Arirang was the first time in whole of the concert that the orchestra played without an agenda. The Star Spangled Banner was a condition of the concert going ahead and although it is traditional to play anthems while on tour it is difficult not to think that at least a modicum of stick-it-to-the-mannedness was a factor. Lohengrin was about joy and also a chance to push the envelope and play music that is banned. (The Nazis loved Wagners so the DPRK doesn’t) Dvorak’s New World Symphony was meant to show how much America likes foreigners while the Gershwin was a clever way to sneak in jazz, also forbidden in North Korea.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Arirung was the only time the two groups connected but even from 5,700 miles away via web feed I could see the change in the audience and the orchestra. In the brief glimpses broadcast afforded me, I spotted audience members smiling and singing along to themselves as well as more than one man with “something in his eye.” It was moment of truly altruistic cultural exchange were all the clichés about the power of music and its universal language skillz were shown to be true. One soul connecting to another. At the end of the day, what else is there?

If you haven’t heard it already, have a listen now. The entire concert is available for streaming on the PBS website [if you live in the States] and will be broadcast live tonight on national PBS stations tonight.

Here is the text:

I am crossing over Arirang Pass.
The man/woman who abandoned me
Will not walk even ten li before his/her feet hurt.

Just as there are many stars in the clear sky,
There are also many dreams in our heart.

There, over there that mountain is Baekdu Mountain,
Where, even in the middle of winter days, flowers bloom.

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