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Steve, who had become fluent in Mandarin introduced the symphony to the festival audience. Steve of course, was introduced by Jacky. He called Steve a long time supporter of the people of China.
Steve spoke softly, looking over the top of his narrow glasses, just like I remembered him from his lecture in Germany many years back in time. This time he did not speak about mathematics. He spoke about the wonders of the human spirit and the grandeur of the sublimity of its reach. Wai-yi translated his speech into English for us.
Steve spoke from the podium that had been erected at the lake-side plaza for the performers. The podium was located right in front of where the Lu Rose was docked. Numerous Chinese musicians had performed on the podium since we arrived, from which Steve now spoke. He said that they would find the music they were about to hear, radically different. He said that it had been composed by Germany's greatest composer who had been totally deaf by the time the music was written, so that he had never heard the music performed with his own ears. Steve explained also that the text of the choral part of the symphony was modeled after a poem by Germany's greatest poet and fighter for the freedom of humanity, Friedrich Schiller, whose life was taken by the hand of an assassin before his poem too, The Ode to Joy, was set to the music they were about to hear.
Steve said to the people that neither the poet nor the composer ever heard their works performed, which they were about hear. Steve said that the music is truly a composition about freedom and joy. He said that freedom and joy are some of the greatest elements in human existence, he also said that these two elements are the most frightening to the imperial oligarchy, for which Schiller's life had been destroyed. "But the imperials couldn't destroy that poet's heritage for humanity," said Steve and smiled, "because that still lives on. It inspired Ludvig Van Beethoven, and through his work it continues to inspire all of us," said Steve.
Steve explained that the first words that they would hear in the forth part of the symphony, are really a greeting extended heart to heart to the listeners, to join in with the music in their hearts; "'Oh friends, let us raise our voices in pleasing, joyful sounds.' With that invitation opens the coral passage," said Steve. He translated the invitation into Chinese. After that, he said the great choral passage culminates into a sublime celebration of joy and its virtues: "Joy, beautiful spark, spark of the gods, daughter of Elysium. Thy magic unites all those whom stern custom has parted; all men will become brothers under thy gentle wing."
With having said this, in Chinese this time, Steve stepped down.
The Symphony was played through the ship's stereo system that we had set up on board of the Lu Rose. The system was not designed for huge spaces. Still, it was sufficient to penetrate all the way to the far end of the plaza, and into the streets beyond it. And people did respond to it.
When the music began, barely half of the plaza was filled. Many people had already left by then. But by the time the symphony ended, there wasn't a free space left to stand. Some people stood even in the street leading up to the plaza. It appeared that virtually no one had heard that kind of music before. Also, I had the feeling that more than just a few of the people who had heard that music began to understand that night the meaning of our boat, called the Lu Rose, the Lodging of the Rose. They seemed to have heard something in that music that had found a lodging in their own hearts. One could see it in their faces.
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