The Latest at Goethe

Bollywood fans are familiar with melodies by the Indian film composer A. R. Rahman. In Mumbai, a guest performance by the Film Orchestra Babelsberg illustrated how foreign the familiar can sound and yet still thrill the audience. By Dirk Knipphals

The National Centre for the Performing Arts is located in one of the showcase districts of Mumbai, India’s economic and cultural capital. Marine Drive, the promenade that offers idyllic views of the sunsets on the Arabic Sea, begins right at the gates of the centre. The views are best enjoyed in January and February, when the heat is not as tropical.

Here in one of Mumbai’s most modern areas, one of the most prominent events of the current Year of Germany in India took place: the Babelsberg Film Orchestra played melodies and songs by A. R. Rahman, the Indian film composer who began his world career in Bollywood and at the latest since contributing his music to Slumdog Millionaire is one of the best-paid musicians in Hollywood.

The centre is a must mainly for its acoustics; it has the best concert hall in the entire city of 18 million people. On the day before the premier, Amrit Gangar guides us over the extensive grounds. The German musicians are partaking in the generous buffet of rice and curry dishes set up for them at the side entrance after their rehearsal. There is not much time and the musicians are eating on their feet. Only one of the German musicians, we are told, did not take so well to the Indian food and now has to calm her stomach with dry rice and bananas.


The members of the chorus, made up of students from the KM Music Conservatory founded by A. R. Rahman to teach classical music, stand a bit to one side. They have great respect for the European musicians. India’s only symphony orchestra is still in its set-up phase and consists mainly of musicians from Kazakhstan.

In the meantime, Amrit Gangar shows us the pillars in the entrance area of the National Centre and asks one of us to knock on them: solid marble and beautiful at that. It and the entire centre were paid for by the Tata family, who are like India’s Krupps. The Tatas produce automobiles and telephone, they own hotels, and they act as cultural patrons. Anyone who wants to do something in the arts in India has to deal with them. In addition, the German cable company Lapp, which envisions major expansion opportunities in India, was gained as a sponsor.

For Gangar, though, the smaller venue on the grounds that seats about 300 is even more important than marble. This is where subculture and avant-garde performances are held. Gangar is a film historian. He founded a documentary film festival in Mumbai and has collaborated with the Hebbel-Theater in Berlin.


He was decisively involved in devising the concert with his contacts to Babelsberg and Bollywood. He wrote a description of the collaboration by film studios in Babelsberg and Mumbai for the booklet for the Indian tour, which is also taking the Babelsberg orchestra to New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, and Bangalore. The history goes back to the days of silent films. Thus, the tour is part of a long tradition and yet something entirely new. It is the first time that a major European symphony orchestra has come to India not to play Haydn or Mozart, but the music of an Indian composer.

“I approached A. R. Rahman on a wing and prayer,” reports Marla Stukenberg, who directs the Goethe-Institut in Mumbai and had the original idea for the collaboration, “and a responding email arrived very quickly to my surprise.” It said, “Let's make it happen!”

Now, the organizational threads of the mammoth project come together in Marla Stukenberg’s office. It involves 130 hotel reservations in five cities, 3,500 kilograms of instruments and in the ever-present bureaucracy of India, permits must be requested for every detail, and don’t forget the stamps! Then, shortly before the premier Stukenberg had to summon up considerable diplomatic skills to graciously ward off requests for tickets. In India, it’s common to make use of one’s connections. But, the hall has no more than a thousand seats. At further stops on the tour there will be up to 8,000 seats available.


Stukenberg did not persuade A. R. Rahman to collaborate using money. The international star is going without pay. “We wouldn’t have been able to pay him anyway,” says the institute director. Instead, Rahman is interested in long-term collaboration between the German musicians and his conservatory. Agreements have already been made and exchange opportunities between Mumbai and Potsdam have been initiated.

The collaboration for the tour launch in Mumbai went very well. The composer A. R. Rahman with his Bollywood foundations, conductor-arranger Matt Dunkley, with whom Rahman has already worked on many a film score, and the Babelsberg Orchestra all met with a will to work set to overwhelm the audience. The result was a practical exploration of the musical terrain between the European orchestral tradition and the silver screen emotionality of Bollywood music. The sitar and flute solos contribute the Indian flavour of big cinema.

The concert was a new experience not only for the Indian audience to hear familiar melodies with the broad sound and pathos of a European orchestra, but also for the German musicians. The audience cheered loudly whenever it recognized one of A. R. Rahman’s Bollywood anthems, making some of the orchestral musicians gaze part-irritated, part-impressed over their violins. At these moments, Amrit Gangar could not suppress a smile.