“We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who make a brighter day.” Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s iconic song from the 80s rang through a packed Kamani Auditorium in Delhi on Monday evening. The song has always been popular, but this rendition by the group of young boys on stage received renewed appreciation from the audience as these children have truly made the day a whole lot brighter. Their cherubic faces and entertaining antics on stage exude a childlike innocence, but there is a maturity in the performance that belies their young age.
Holding the audience captivated for over an hour comes naturally to them. After all, they, or rather the cultural institution of which they are a part, have been doing this for hundreds of years. This is the Vienna Boys Choir, an elite group of male singers between the ages of nine and 13, and one of the most renowned choral groups in the world. Seasoned performers, the choral group perform over 300 concerts a year across the globe. And on October 23, after a gap of 15 years they returned to India for a concert tour titled ‘A Passage to India’. On Monday night they performed to a packed hall in Delhi in the first of three concerts this week over Delhi and Mumbai. Their varied repertoire celebrates Austrian and Indian musical tradition, but also a varied selection with themes close to the choir, like travel, and unity in diversity.
Based in the Austrian capital, the Wiener Sängerknaben, or Vienna Boys Choir is among the oldest global musical organisations in the world. It was founded by Emperor Maximilian I in 1498 when he wished for a group of six young male voices to be added to the choir of the Imperial Chapel. “Well, these boys are obviously not that old,” jokes their conductor, Jimmy Chiang, “but the group dates back over five hundred years.” The tradition of singing in Sunday masses in the Imperial Chapel of the Hofburg Place in Vienna continues till today, drawing in visitors from around the world. The group consists of approximately 100 boys of sopranos and altos split into 4 groups – Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Bruckner – who tour and perform concerts in Austria and globally. From Princess Diana to George Bush, the group has performed for royalty, heads of state and music lovers across the world. When their voices mature, usually at the age of 13 or 14, they graduate from the choir.
Rishan Bhatnagar
Coming straight in from China and Taiwan where they have been on tour for the last few weeks, the group is now in India till November 1. This is the seventh visit to the subcontinent, their first official tour since 2004. Though traditionally the young singers were all Austrian, over time the choir has become more international, the multicultural composition of the group visible on stage. The conductor, Jimmy Chiang, originally from Hong Kong, is an accomplished concert pianist and orchestra conductor and has been with the group for six years. “He makes conducting look effortless”, one of the audience members observes, switching seamlessly between playing the piano and conducting the boys with one hand!
Chiang speaks about the evolution in the choir as beautiful and inevitable. “For many of the international members, their mother tongue is not German. It is different for them than for the local boys who have grown up speaking the language. This may be a challenge, but it works beautifully.”
The repertoire features pieces telling of the choir’s historic roots, with compositions written for the imperial choir from the 15th to 17th centuries as well as classical favourites by Mozart, Rossini, and Schumann. From the minute the boys enter singing Michael Praetorius canon ‘Jubilate Deo’, their pure and bright voices wash over the audience in goose-bump inducing clarity. As with all countries they visit on tour, local music features and their rendition of ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram’ in commemoration of Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary and Amir Khusro’s qawwali ‘Man Kunto Maula’ receives much appreciation by the audience.
“We have a more international repertoire now as the choir has evolved and we do a broad range of music, including some pop music as well.” says Chiang. “But the aim is always to keep the sound that the Vienna Boys Choir is known for, keeping it as pure as possible.” And that is apparent in their achingly beautiful rendition of Billy Joel’s “Vienna”, the soprano soloist’s voice soaring through the hall, and “We Are The World”, their earnest and endearing performance bringing the song alive and celebrating the unity in diversity of choral music.
And it is not just their voices, for these boys are to the stage born. They are true performers. Gioachino Rossini’s ‘Duetto buffo per due gatti’ (Duet in the buffo style for two cats) has two of the singers don cat masks and sing the only lyric “Meow” in an entertaining three minute performance, that has the children and adults in the audience rapt in delight. On many of the pieces, different members accompany the group on string and percussion instruments and even direct the audience in clapping along in time to some of the songs. There are onomatopoeic pieces like Aaron Copland’s “I bought me a cat” with quacks and moos and neighs flying on stage and bringing the Austrian alpine region alive in ‘Juchhe, Tirolerbua’. The lively Viennese waltzes and polkas by Johann and Josef Strauss are cheerful pieces for which the boys are famous.
In their spare time the group has been sightseeing, visiting Gandhi Smriti, the National Museum and Lodhi Gardens. Some of the boys are Bollywood fans and hope that Shah Rukh Khan may attend their concert in Mumbai! Though the choir has not been here in 15 years, there is a strong Indian connection, through the Artistic Director of the group, Gerald Wirth, who was introduced to Indian music by Pandit Ravi Shankar and started the Mozart Children’s Choir in New Delhi. The group has also spent some of their spare time with an ex-member and the first Indian boy in the history of the choir, Rishan Bhatnagar. After spending four years with them, he graduated a few months ago, returning to his family in Gurugram. He joins them on stage for a couple of songs and conducts the audience in clapping to the encore, Strauss’ ‘Radetzky March’. It’s an enthralling evening of music and we do hope that it will not be another 15 years before the boys are back in town!
(The Vienna Boys will perform on November 1, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. E-mail habitatprogrammes@gmail.com to register.)
