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BRAVO Bavaria
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Vats of beer and loads of music gave the Oktoberfest a heady fizz
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Fun time at Oktoberfest: any music is good with beer! — Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash
THE GERMANS are surely the best beer drinkers in the world. They are huge and hearty; they come with such generous laughter, and bellies that know no end when it comes to Heineken. And they eat really well for all that beer they drink. At the Bavarian Oktoberfest last week, at the Taj Residency, the Teutons did all this and more. The sweet Bavarians among them gave us good music — folk, church music, Christmas carols, and The Beatles!
This is the Bavarians' third visit and they like it here. Reisbacher Musikanten conducts music for the 14-member band that has already done Kochi and Ooty. Reisbacher is what you would imagine he would be, like everyone else in the band: whiter than milk, a strapping blond, and clad in his region's typical short pants with suspenders worn over a white shirt. And very amicable. "I like this place. It is different from what happens in Munich, but it is interesting." The band, he told me, comes from the village of Reisbach, Bavaria — which has 70,000 people — just 15 km. from the headquarters of BMW. And many musicians, he confided, work for BMW, where engineering meets aesthetics!
The man loves to talk, so much so the band members had to rush him into the hall to begin the performance, and as he began, in German, everybody roared and raised a toast. Five minutes into the music, the band's symphonic pieces got a couple dancing (the lady was a bit stiff), and the burly Germans began swaying on the benches hand-in-hand. The Indians only screamed, and didn't really dance. Our kind is still suspicious about dancing with abandon, it would seem!
The music was at a crescendo when this six-foot-eight German laughing uproariously, holding a humungous glass of beer, loomed large. He identified himself as Carsten M. Glombik, Head, Global Accounts, Bajaj Allianz, and proceeded to educate me on the Oktoberfest. Clasping his huge hands around my modest shoulders, which almost collapsed under all that weight, Carsten told me the tradition dated back to 1820. "The prince of Munich married a very beautiful woman. He wanted to celebrate it with good music at the Munich Palace. The idea was to listen to music while you drank and ate good meat. That is why the bakers, butchers, and brewers were there. And he wanted the peasants to listen to the music."
The modern Munich festival took root from there, and now, there are six million people drinking and listening to Bavarian music every October. Reisbacher's band, which has been performing at the original venue for years, was set up in 1977. Those who make up the band took time off from work to practise. Cartsen, in between large gulps of beer, said only the best band in Bavaria got to perform on the opening day of the festival. Reisbacher's band, started as a lark, ended up being the best. It still has the honour of inaugurating the festival.
Reisbacher, meanwhile, did not forget to tell me that the beer festival in Munich was all about tents. "Anybody who drank and listened to music in a tent felt privileged. The festival has travelled to many towns. And thousands come together. It is a community of beer and music." The festival "has been copied and performed at least 3,000 times" all over the world. Other countries have their versions, like the wine festival in France. The band, while not performing at the festival, turns up during weekends to perform.
The crowd was still swaying to the clarinet and raised an appreciative toast every time Reisbacher said something to the effect of one, two, three, in German, very rhythmically. Some Americans, who are here on work for Dell, more than liked it. "We are having a nice time here. The city's good. Drink a beer and enjoy," one said. All of them were there — dressed easy - executives, professionals, businessmen, techies — to enjoy the music and guzzle all that beer. One of them, from Wipro, had his say. "Any music with beer is fine. Whether you understand it or not." Certainly a heady compliment for the Bavarians.
PRASHANTH G.N.
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