Into the hermit tyranny, with music

The Rocky

Published February 28, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated February 28, 2008 at 2:03 a.m.

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Who knew North Korea's secretive leadership had such expansive tastes in Western music? No sooner does the New York Philharmonic make a groundbreaking visit to Pyongyang than the North Koreans invite British rocker Eric Clapton to come on over and put on a concert.

The orchestra was greeted with great warmth and received a standing ovation from the North Korean elite for a performance that featured both nations' national anthems, Dvorak's New World Symphony and Gershwin's An American in Paris, and concluded with a Korean song, Airang.

The temptation is to compare this visit with the 1971 visit of an American pingpong team to China. It led to a Beijing visit by President Richard Nixon, the establishment of diplomatic relations and, in fits and starts, growing engagement between the two nations.

Visiting musicians aside, North Korea is still a thoroughgoing Stalinist dictatorship. But nothing official happens by accident in this hermit land, and it does appear that its leadership is tentatively testing the possibility of a little more openness to the outside world.

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