On Beethoven's fifth

Mr. Narish Stock was generous in allowing readers of The Jakarta Post (Oct. 21, 1994) to share the experience he had when listening to the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; generous because he might have laid himself open to ridicule in such cynical company.

In fact he is a lucky man. He has experienced a rare phenomenon dubbed by psychiatrists `the oceanic experience'; a feeling of complete well-being, a sensation of `eternity,' a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded -- as it were, `oceanic.' These last words are not mine, but those of Romain Rolland in a letter of Freud, where this description 'oceanic' was first used. It is a mystical experience and most commonly felt through the medium of music. In her book Ecstasy, Marghanita Laski writes of a questionnaire she distributed on this subject. In controlled groups music was quoted more often than any other art form as the trigger for this ecstatic experience.

It is encouraging to know, that in a society hell-bent on importing the worst excesses of Western banality, a small golden nugget has been imported too. I congratulate Mr. Stock on achieving this experience and, of course, the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra who made it possible. Beethoven, as usual, will peer down smugly from his Olympian heights.

Jakarta is fortunate. We in Bali are rarely so, and usually have to make do with a succession of indifferent performances by second-rate guitarists and pianists who manage to convince hotel PR ladies they are worth a free lunch. The oceanic experience is hardly likely under such meretricious circumstances. Mr. Stock asks if there is any chance the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra might play more frequently. I ask only that they should be allowed to play here at all.

ROBERT WALKER

Amlapura, Bali