The Munich Philharmonic started a concert in Berlin 25 minutes late. Not because they wanted to torture their audience, as is usual at pop concerts, but involuntarily – because they traveled by Deutsche Bahn. This is of course an annoying mistake – the Munich musician. After all, two things are certain on earth: taxes and the unreliability of Deutsche Bahn.
What happened? With more than 200 participants, the Philharmonic is on tour with Gustav Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. It is said that it took Mahler six years to complete it – what is a paltry 25 minutes late in its performance? A blink of an eye! But that’s just by the way.
Because the orchestra wants to make its travels as climate-friendly as possible, the train was chosen. The musicians quickly realized that this was the wrong choice: “We would have started at Cologne Central Station at 9:30 a.m. – after three (!) canceled ICE trains and no information about how, when or whether we would get any further, we finally rolled three hours later still going,” the Philharmonic wrote on Facebook. “Thanks to further delays, we arrived in Berlin 4.5 hours later than planned and completely exhausted; we were on the road for 10 hours.” A horse-drawn carriage from Mahler’s lifetime would probably not have been much slower. But more reliable.
The concert started late and a planned radio broadcast from the Berlin Philharmonic fell through. And because the train really messed up the journey, the Philharmonic are now banging on the drum: “Despite repeated negative experiences, we have defended and protected you, again and again,” they tell the train. “But you’re stabbing us in the back, you’re letting us down.”
And how does the train, which is out of sync, react? With internal dissonance: “Unfortunately, train traffic was severely affected that day due to a storm front,” the company responded to the Philharmonic’s Facebook post. “Then it’s probably a case of statement against statement,” the musicians replied. “So far you have given us the reason for repairs to the train – would you perhaps like to coordinate this internally again?”
Discordant tones that don’t fit with Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. But the nickname of the work could be a commission for the future for the ailing Deutsche Bahn: Resurrection Symphony. Its Time.