Vienna Philharmonic plays for those who can pay

Vienna Philharmonic draws the crowds. PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL

Whatever we to say about the Vienna Phil playing in Taipei this weekend with top ticket prices of NT$7,200? On the one hand, they're one of the three or four best orchestras in the world. On the other, think of the CDs you could get for that money! You can listen to those over and over again, but with these concerts it's two hours-worth of sound in your ears, and then it's all over.

Ticket are a lot less in Taichung, incidentally, where the orchestra plays tonight. As with everything else, you pay your money -- albeit a great deal more in this case than usual -- and you take your choice.

And there's Zubin Mehta, who will conduct. Born in India of Parsee lineage (his father founded India's first Western-style orchestra in 1935), Mehta is currently in charge of the Israel Philharmonic, and before that ran the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics.

All the world's top conductors want to work with the Vienna Philharmonic. After all, conductors can make no music alone, and to show themselves at their best they need to work with the best instrumentalists. Simon Rattle, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Mutti have all conducted the Vienna Philharmonic recently -- the orchestra, most unusually, has no resident maestro of its own.

Another feature of this line-up used to be that it contained no women, apart from a token harpist. For some reason the harp is an instrument judged only playable by a woman. But from 1997 equal opportunity was finally granted, and his weekend we may see a small number of women -- one local expert suggests two or three -- among their number.

The orchestra's Taiwan programs are generally unadventurous. Saturday's Taipei concert will culminate in Mahler's lyrical Symphony No. 1, with Haydn's Sinfonia Concertante and Nikolai's Merry Wives overture beforehand. Sunday will see Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 (Eroica), preceded by Haydn's Trumpet Concerto and Beethoven's Leonora Overture No. 3. This second program is the one to be played in Taichung.

The Vienna Philharmonic will play tonight in Taichung and tomorrow and Sunday at the National Concert Hall Taipei.