On 11 June 2010, a bright midsummer evening in Moscow, the spectacular crystal chandeliers in the opulent Hall of Columns are ablaze with light in celebration of Russia Day. It is the finale of the Festival of the World's Symphony Orchestras, and the audience of tuxedoed sophisticates is hushed, focused on the familiar music ringing in their ears. Now it is Beethoven's ultimate masterpiece, the 9th Symphony, so central to music history that the original format of the compact disc was expanded from 10 to 12 cm specifically to fit it. The audience sighs almost imperceptibly when the 'Ode to Joy' – undoubtedly one of the most familiar and famous single pieces of music ever written – rings out, the rousing chorus on which the official anthem of Europe is based.
But look closer and you realise there is something decidedly unusual about this orchestra. They are not Russians, or Germans. In fact, they are not from any of the cultures that sustain Western music, or even from East Asia, which has embraced it so successfully in recent generations. This is, in fact, the international debut of the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), a four-year-old operation sponsored by the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai – the 'fulfilment of a dream' for Khushroo Suntook, the NCPA chairman.
'I grew up listening to the "Ode to Joy" and Beethoven's 9th,' smiles Ashley Rego, a 25-year-old violinist who has been with the SOI since its inception. 'Moscow is known for producing the best string players in the world, so playing here is a great honour.' Rego is one of several Goans who play full-time for the SOI, but a close look at the rest of the players reveals that Indians constitute just a handful of the 109 members. In fact, the SOI is a grab-bag of musicians from 14 different countries, with a particularly large contingent representing Kazakhstan, the home country of the SOI's music director, Marat Bisengaliev. Indeed, when this ambitious new venture was launched, in 2006, there were only 10 Indians recruited to play in a crowd of musicians from the former Soviet Union. After four years, there are now 15 Indian regular players – a bit more than ten percent of the total contingent, but still a considerable distance from constituting a 'national' orchestra worth the name.
The Moscow concert does constitute a milestone for the SOI, however, and bodes well for the future development of a culture of Western classical music in the Subcontinent. But forgotten in all the hoopla about this 'pioneering Indian orchestra' is that it comes only after long decades of deliberate stifling of Western classical music in India, and a full 52 years after the first proper symphony orchestra in India was founded – and then disbanded. What is more, the Indian Symphony Orchestra that performed several times in 1958, under the baton of the visionary Anthony Gonsalves, was constituted entirely of Indians, and even played a repertoire of 'raga-based symphonies' that remains completely unique in the history of Western classical music.