Beethoven's Seventh second movement with socially-distanced musicians

I watched the whole film, which is a film and not a concert. It is a demonstration of the way musicians and performing organizations are trying to figure out how to move forward.

It is chilling.
It is surreal.
It is not comfortable.



It is clearly so much more difficult to play together with other players when they are physically so far apart from one another, which makes the role of the conductor much more crucial than it is when the sound coming from each of the instruments of the orchestra doesn't have to travel so far in all directions (including up and down). There also seem to fewer string players here, and there's no sense of a string section sound. The blended string section sound from socially-distanced assembled recordings (that music lovers are getting used to hearing) is far superior than the individual voices (excellent players, all) in this space who are trying their best to hear one another, and to feel connected to the music and to each other.

The film also captures the kind spirit of the musicians, who are happy to be able to try to play together. To do their work.

I have found, through my travels, that orchestral musicians are pretty much the same everywhere. In our lives as orchestral musicans we all have similar goals, (mostly) the same repertoire, the same challenges, and the same needs. These musicians in Germany are demonstrating one option of how the larger "we" of orchestral musicians might be performing until the virus has completed its ultimate damage, and everyone in the world is vaccinated against it.