In the thrift store of the time: nostalgia or old stuff

“You write very fascinating about beautiful musical performances, but can't you do that in advance so that I can also attend them?”

Helpless and distraught, I looked at him. What could I say to that? I generally love paradoxes, but this one came too close. In space you can move up or down, to the left or to the right, forward or backward, but moving in time is a completely different story. That just isn't possible. The arrow of time knows only one direction: straight ahead. From a philosophical point of view, it is very questionable whether time is a straight line, so it consists of an infinite number of points, or only one point (the now) so that you can conclude that time actually does not exist at all.

Phya Thai Palace on Ratchawithi Road

Moving around in space sometimes takes quite a bit of time, as I noticed once again on May 19 when I drove a van from Jomtien Beach Road to Victory Monument in Bangkok and got out there, looking for the nearby Phya Thai Palace on the Ratchawithi Road.

The pleasant-looking, modest palace is adjacent to the huge Phramongkhutlao Hospital of the army, compared to which the AMC in Amsterdam, which is not a small one either, is definitely a toddler. The Phya Thai Palace was built in 1909 by order of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), inhabited by him for only a short time, and has subsequently been used as a luxury hotel, as Thailand's first radio station, as a hospital and now as a museum.

Thewarat Sapharom Hall

What I came for was a concert in honor of Princess Galyani Vadhana in the beautiful Thewarat Sapharom Hall near the palace, a neoclassical showpiece of breathtaking beauty. From the outside it looks somewhat rustic, but when you step inside, you walk straight into a villa by Palladio, anno 1560 or perhaps an outbuilding of St. Peter's, anno 1626. Or maybe you can't say it that way, because Palladio is classicist and of course not neoclassical, and Saint Peter's is baroque. Moreover, this building dates from 1909, so that is all very confusing. Maybe the arrow of time is not so compelling after all and you can just end up in all kinds of mirrored cycles….

And it didn't stop there because before the start of the concert I came for, I went for a cup of coffee in the coffee room of the palace. I walked in there and I didn't know what hit me: I had never seen such a beautiful coffee room! It's like a fin de siècle Viennese coffeehouse, of almost uncanny perfection. I was speechless and enjoyed that space much more than my cappuccino, transcending time and place.

Concert time machine

Then I entered the time machine of the concert: Piano Variations by Mozart from 1781 (played by 12-year-old Nattawat Luxsuwong), a Piano Quartet by Beethoven from 1785 (when he was 15 years old!) and the Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major opus 81 by Dvorak from 1887, irresistible Slavic music, sublimely played by Pornphan Banternghansa at the piano with Leo Phillips, Jirajet Jesadachet, Tasana Nagavajara and Edith Salzmann on strings.

It made my head spin: musically I had been transported to Vienna at the end of the eighteenth century and Prague at the end of the nineteenth century. But it didn't stop there because since architecture can be defined as solidified music, I also ended up in Italy of the sixteenth century and again in Vienna, but then that of the late nineteenth century. And all of that just in one night in Bangkok in 2013!

Finally, I can reveal that I will be playing Dvorak's piano quintet together with a string quartet myself this summer in the Czech Republic, in Ceske Budejovice to be precise. I would say: my interlocutor, whom I quoted at the beginning of this piece, knows what to do! On to Ceske Budejovice….

Thrift store, full of nostalgic trips

Music and architecture are able to turn the obsessive, monomaniac arrow of time into a downright thrift store, full of nostalgic trips to times and places you've never been or maybe you've been, a wonderful and precious time machine. Some consider it old stuff, but it should be clear that I think very differently. And should you ever be near the Phya Thai Palace, don't miss out on admiring the beautiful Thewarat Sapharom Hall and sipping a cappuccino in the truly sublime coffee room. You would be selling yourself short.