‘No Country For Old Men’ – 2: Who Shall Interpret The Text?

After Muhammad’s death, his confidants faced the question of succession: Who was qualified to sit in the prophet’s place – administratively, of course – and who was to determine the qualifications?

Some believed that Muhammad had designated his son-in-law, Ali, as his successor. But Ali’s rivals offered a narrower interpretation of the event in question; the Prophet was talking about family affairs when he said that Ali would be his successor. And Ali was 25, no small handicap in traditional society ruled by the elders.

So Abu-Bakr became the first caliph and after he died, Umar succeeded him and after Omar, Uthman was elected. In this way, almost 40 years passed till Ali reigned.

By then deep political schisms had emerged within the Islamic leadership. In the second year of Ali’s rule, one particularly strong movement led by Muawieh took up arms against the central government. The two armies faced off and, after a few days of battles, Ali’s forces gained the upper hand.

Sensing defeat, one of Muawieh’s shrewd advisers had a thought. In the battle they were about to lose, he ordered the army to cease fighting, hoist copies of the Qur’an on their spearheads and shout that We are all Muslims so let the Holy Book be the judge between us.

The plan worked and Ali’s army stopped.

The news reached Ali. He ordered the commanders to hit the Qu’rans and the enemy. Those are not Qu’ran, he said, just goatskins with ink on it. Hit them, he said. They are using Qur’an. I know what Qur’an is.

It was incredible command; one can see in it the origin of the radicalism of Shiite Islam whose followers revere Ali as the true successor of the Prophet.

But the soldiers refused, whereupon the battle ended in a stalemate which led to a protracted negotiation at the end of which Ali was assassinated.

The politics of early Islam do not concern us here. What I want to note is that Ali’s unorthodox order thrust into the fore a question which had always lurked in the background of all leadership selection processes: To whom does interpreting The Text fall to? That is no idle question. Interpreting the text means applying it to the people’s daily lives. It is pointing the way for the people to follow.

In Shiite Islam, ayatollah’s have that role. They are the interpreters of The Text and its application to worldly problems. The religion is conscious of, and acknowledges, that there could be multiple interpretations of events, so it permits more than one ayatollah at any era.

There is no compulsion for Shiites to follow anyone. But if you accept an ayatollah, you must follow him, no matter how unorthodox his interpretations and decrees; recall Ayatollah Khomeini’s famous fatwa – ruling – against Salmon Rushdie. Such are the terms of the social contract.

What an ayatollah is in Shiite Islam, a conductor is in the world of music. He is the interpreter of the musical text (score).

Of course, the relation between an ayatollah and his followers, a conductor and his musicians – between the ruler and the ruled, in general – is a reciprocal one. An ayatollah is the interpreter of the text precisely because his followers have accepted him for that role and seek inspiration and guidance from him. Take an ayatollah out of Qum or Najaf and put him in say, Beverly Hills, and his words and deeds will cease to have any weight or even meaning. His raison d’être will melt away. Beverly Hills is no place – no country – for an old ayatollah. He will be dead-on-arrival there socially before he dies physically.

As with ayatollahs, so with the orchestra conductors. But the destructive alienation of the conductors – their social homelessness – does not arise from a change in location. It comes, rather, from the metaphorical ground giving way under their feet.

Let me elaborate by returning to Karajan, with Berlin Philharmonic playing Beethoven’s Egmont.

As the music begins, the camera is positioned to his right, so it shows the 1st and 2nd violins. From 0:15 to 0:35, watch the physical movement of the players, their operational body language. Note the unison in movements.



From 1:22 to 1:35, note the attentiveness of the wind section.

From 2:20, as the piece moves towards the crescendo, the camera switches to the cello section. See how the players gradually come to life. From 2:46, for example, keep your eyes on the cellist at ‘12 O’clock’. His body jerks at 2:54 when his part – until then in the background – merges with the main theme.

At the climax at 3:03, we no longer have a conductor and an orchestra. We have a crew being directed in a rowing competition, executing a dance-like harmony of motion and music, itself a manifestation of the harmony of working and learning – being and knowing – that elemental dichotomy of man’s survival needs on one hand and his quest for understanding the world on the other with which Nasser magnificently opens the Vol. 4 of Speculative Capital.

Karajan is aware of that grand narrative and directs his orchestra accordingly. The orchestra responds because the musicians, like the followers of an ayatollah, are inspired by him. You see that interaction in the video. Karajan did not tell his players to move their bodies while playing. The harmonic movement, rather, comes from within the group, being the natural reaction of the players to the guidance of a leader whose ability to lead they trust.

Now, the anticlimax: to Maazel and New York Philharmonic playing the same piece.



Play the tape for about a minute and stop.

The locale, judging from the ‘crawler’, is Southeast Asia. Is that the reason for the uncertain and confused camerawork? It’s hard to tell. But whether westerner or easterner, the director of photography does not have a clue about the music he is taping. So, he directs the camera to the wrong section and, to cover the mistake, he switches after a few seconds, which is very distracting. The opening shot shows the back of the orchestra, a suitably inauspicious start for the performance we are about to see!

Listen to the sound. It is full and rich, which is what one would expect from the New York Philharmonic. Without tens or perhaps hundreds of times listening to it, you would be at a loss to tell it apart from the performance of Berlin Philharmonic.

Now, let us move from the sound to the sight.

Keep watching the video until the climax of the piece at 3:00, where Karajan and his musicians created a dance-like harmony of sound and motion.

The inept camerawork here prevents us from seeing the critical parts but from 2:54 to 2:58 and then from 3:03 to 3:08 we see enough to realize that the players are very politely motionless. Their bodies do not move with music. In fact, if you pay attention to their faces from 2:32 to 2:54 where the overture moves towards its climax, you will see that they seem to be bored. Even the balding concertmaster (2:43-2:53) is bored!

I am not creating mysteries.

Stop at 1:30 and look at the faces. We are looking at the string section which is the backbone of the orchestra.

First, note that the players are noticeably younger compared to members of the Berlin Philharmonic. (And you thought that the disposal of old people only happens in the corporate world. The music world, too, is no country for old men!)

But I am not interested in the players’ age per se.

Look further and see that about half of the players are "Asian" females. There is a blond. Then a silver-haired man, evidence that the orchestra does not discriminate against the older players!

But I am not interested in race or gender either. I want to know why the musicians’ bodies did not move with the music – and why do they seem to be bored?

The hodgepodge at 1:30 has the potential to suggest an easy answer: The orchestra is diverse, as these days we suppose it should be. There is no commonality between the players. A silver-haired white man and an Asian female in her 20s or 30s – it is the stuff of dating services and not much else. So, there.

But we rejected the politics of racism that McCarthy had hinted at. It would be childish, i.e., stupid for an adult, to believe that the hiring practice of the New York Philharmonic is the cause of the malaise in the orchestra or that the solution to the problem would be going back to the old days of middle-aged-white-men-only orchestras.

The problem runs much deeper. It is the cause of racism and sexism.

Like politicians, let us begin with easy targets: Young "Asian" females. They comprise about half of the backbone of New York Philharmonic.

In general, we know that no one gets to play for the NYP unless he/she were a master musician. So, let us ask ourselves: How would a young "Asian" female play Beethoven?

The answer is: perfectly and uncomprehendingly.

Perfection of the form overcompensating for the poverty of the content.

I will return to explain.