My interview with Margaret Throsby

Lately, I have been diverting myself with a fanciful sport. It goes as follows. ABC Classic FM's Margaret Throsby invites me for her 10:05 Morning Interview program. As per the rule of the game, I have to name about five of my musical choices, which will be aired in between gentle grilling by the charming hostess. Usually, Throsby wants to know the stories behind particular choices. After wrestling with the seeming impossibility of the task, I come up with the followings:

1. Flute Concerto No. 3 'The Goldfinch': Allegro (Vivaldi) - This flute concerto was the first work of Western classical music that I connected to. At the time, I was trying to learn bamboo flute. For some reason, this delightful piece conjured up alpine images for me. The association has stuck in my mind. There is something lofty and ethereal about the playful dialogue between the flute and other instrument(s). (In this YouTube arrangement, the flute duets with a piano).


2. Autumn Moon Over the Han Palace - One of my friends once observed that there is melancholy at the heart of this famous Chinese classical number. To me, it is a textbook example of the traditional Japanese aesthetic ideal of wabi-sabi, which centers around the concept of beauty tinged with sadness at the transience of things. Wabi-sabi has its roots in Buddhism. Autumn moon is a recurring trope in classical Chinese and Japanese literature and arts.


3. Chanson de Matin, Op. 15 No 2 (Elgar) - I remember the exact moment when I first fell in love with this charmer. I was returning home on train from work, listening to ABC Classic FM on my mobile. I looked out the window, and it was a glorious late afternoon, with wide open skies flecked with glowing clouds. ABC FM was playing this piece, and I was entranced. This sweet music is about another sky, the inner sky. It gently explores the "lonely spaces" of the heart, in the words of the ABC host.


4. Nulla in Mundo Pax Sincera (Vivaldi) - One of the most uplifting moments in cinema (for me, anyway) is the scene in Shine (1997) in which troubled pianist David Helfgott (played by Geoffrey Rush in his Oscar winning performance) jumps up and down in slow motion to the tune of this music. The rare purity and delicate beauty of this work makes it a genuine heart-stopper.


5. Prelude from Cell Suite No 1 (JS Bach) - The great statesman, aesthete, writer and former Prime Minister of Nepal, BP Koirala, confessed to feeling the presence of god when attending Ravi Shankar's first concert in Nepal (I was lucky enough to attend Shankar's second concert in Nepal, staged at the Royal Academy Hall, Kathmandu, in which the famous Sitar maestro was accompanied by his nubile daughter Anushka Shankar, around 16/17 years of age at the time). Koirala must have felt as I do when I listen to JS Bach.