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Austrian musicians enthral Jaipurians

     Jaipur: It was an astonishing experience for several individuals in Jaipur recently when a famous Austrian orchestra played the Jana Gana Mana..., the national anthem of India, and left everyone spellbound with the great show of respect to the music composition of Rabindra Nath Tagore, during a music concert held here. The 80-member Swarovski Music Wattens (SMW), flown in from Vienna, the Capital of Austria, appeared to have put in a lot of effort to make the evening unforgettable for the audience with their fascinating performance. SMW dates back to 1900 when a group of enthusiasts got together to immortalise the spirit of music and since then it has become one of the leading orchestra's in Europe.

    Simon, an artist, said that playing the music of a different region, especially its national anthem, was a bit tough but the group did its best to bewitch the audience. "Well if it was perfect, we don't know but we did our best. But it is always a bit hard to play music from different cultures which you don't know but we did our best and I hope it was good," said Simon. The repertoire of the century old orchestra included medieval, contemporary and experimental music. The audience in Jaipur were spellbound by the precise and persuasive rendition of national anthem by the Austrians. The deafening applause by audience after the end of each composition delighted the artists. "I liked it very much. I liked the people who attended the concert and especially their hospitality. I am fond of their behaviour. I think they liked the music very much," said Fritz, another artist. The performance included songs by many world-renowned musicians. The folk songs were thoroughly enjoyed by the music connoisseurs with rapt attention. "It was a unique occasion for us to witness this because we seldom get such a good orchestra here in Jaipur. And something coming from West, from Austria, was something quite remarkable," said C M Malviya, a visitor. Playing time of the full version of the national anthem is approximately 52 seconds. A short version consisting of first and last lines of the stanza (playing time approximately 20 seconds) is also played on certain occasions. The song Jana-gana-mana, composed originally in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore in 1911,two years before he won the Nobel Prize for literature. Its Hindi version was adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the national anthem of India on 24 January 1950. It was first sung on 27 December 1911 at the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress. The complete song consists of five stanzas.
-Jan 24, 2006

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