May This Be the Last N.Y. Philharmonic Post

I am really, really tired of blogging about this, but I have two more links that I can’t pass up (thanks to the readers who forwarded them). Both have to do with the N.Y. Philharmonic’s financial backers, and both reflect very different ways of viewing the orchestra’s visit — with and without its moral context. The first story, from long-time Korea hand Don Kirk, is mildly inspiring:

During one of the carefully scripted tours of the capital prior to Tuesday’s concert, two dozen well-to-do Philharmonic patrons surprised their omnipresent guides by refusing to toss flowers before the enormous statue of the late “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung, father of the current leader, Kim Jong Il.

“They offered us flowers at the hotel to put in front of the statue,” says G. Chris Andersen, founding partner of GC Andersen Partners, a New York investment banking firm. “We declined that opportunity, saying we don’t do that in our country.”

That small act of defiance was one sign of an ambivalence shared by many of the more than 100 musicians, who flew to South Korea to give the final concert of the tour Thursday.

Always nice to know that not all of our nation’s cultural elite is willing to bow to graven images of bloodthirsty despots.

While deeply moved by extraordinary displays of hospitality as well as the cheers of the audience, some of the musicians were uncomfortable about playing in a nation suffering from lack of food as well as political persecution.

“How many millions of people could be fed with all they spent on us,” asks Enrico DiCCecco, a violinist in his 47th year with the orchestra. “What killed us,” he says, is knowing that Kim Jong Il “is starving his own people.” [Christian Science Monitor, Don Kirk]

But as with glasses, some of us tend to see the head that is half empty. Our second story is about the Japanese-born countess, Lady Yoko Nagae Ceschina, whose late Italian husband (not to mention some good lawyers) left her with far more money than good judgment, and who recently decided that Kim Jong Il ought to have some of it:

She says she is funding the concert with faith that music can succeed where words and diplomacy fail. “I hope that this will lead to some good will,” she says in an interview at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. “Even if I’m criticized, I believe in my position.” [Wall Street Journal]

Faith yet! Strip away that, good taste, and thirty kilos of cellulite and you have Paris Hilton.

The Philharmonic later asked Mrs. Ceschina to sponsor the concert. The Philharmonic and Mrs. Ceschina declined to disclose the costs of housing, feeding and moving 280 musicians, staff and others. South Korean broadcasting network MBC and Asiana Airlines are providing transportation.

The orchestra has an exclusive, three-year sponsorship deal with Credit Suisse, which is funding the orchestra’s five-city tour of Asia that began Feb. 11. A Credit Suisse executive says it isn’t paying for the North Korea visit but wouldn’t elaborate.

Mrs. Ceschina says the Philharmonic sought her support because, unlike a corporate sponsor, she was undaunted by potential controversy. “It was probably good for them because I’m free from politics and companies,” she says. “I always support them without thinking about political issues.”

I may have underrated the subtlety of North Korean propaganda. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that dozens of once-sensible middle-class folk who read this now firmly believe in the expropriation of surplus wealth. I wonder if I earn in a decade what the Countess has squandered so promiscuously on God-knows-what priority of Kim Jong Il’s budget. As long as wealth and merit are laded out by in separate kitchens, class warfare will have eternal appeal — inevitable consequences be damned. Still, even this article told enough of the other side of the story that on balance, this concert did the North Korean regime more harm than good:

Some human-rights advocates say the Philharmonic’s concert will be used as propaganda by the North Korean government, which struggles to shape its world image. Hundreds of thousands of citizens are believed held in prison camps; estimates of famine-related deaths total two million people since shortages began in the 1990s.

Sung-Yoon Lee, assistant professor of international politics at Tufts University, is skeptical music can help. “It’s a very brutal system, and for a world-class, prestigious orchestra like the New York Philharmonic to put its reputation on the line to bring a thaw in this frozen relationship, to my mind, is not realistic,” he says.