For over a decade I have off and on subscribed to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s Digital Concert Hall streaming service. The Berlin Phil was the greatest orchestra in the world in the 1960s-1980s, and today easily remains one of the top handful. So, despite having been a huge fan for years, I found myself struck by something new during a recent short stint of resubscribing: commitment.
Go to a standard orchestra concert and you’ll see a high-quality group of musicians working together as one entity to bring great music to life. They are technically proficient, paying careful attention to the playing of their colleagues around them.
But watch the Berlin Phil and you’ll immediately notice something different: they sit on the edges of their seats, every musician moves with their whole bodies and the entire orchestra looks like they’re almost dancing, breathing together with each phrase as they play.
This is not to diminish other orchestras, and perhaps some viewers prefer a more rigid approach where everyone sits up uniformly and stays still while they play so as not to distract.
But when you see the level of engagement and commitment, the sense of functioning as one organism that you get from the 80 or so Berlin Phil players, it changes your experience of the music. Something new comes alive in that energy, in that commitment.
That word is interesting. The original Latin meaning of commitment is something to the effect of “joining together, engaging, bringing about, carrying out”. Notice how these are not solitary words, but rather imply some sense of doing something meaningful together or in concert with others. And yet another modern definition of commitment describes it as “being emotionally impelled”.
Is that our level of commitment? Are we “emotionally impelled” to “join together” to “bring about” something great? That’s what great teams, great Boards, great organizations, and great orchestras do. And when we physically, visibly see other members of the group emotionally impelled and engaged, it makes us sit up a little straighter on the edges of our seats and breathe into the music with them (metaphorically).
So, are we just phoning it in through our lives, just playing this piece yet another time? Or are we making the commitment to bring about something truly unique, truly special, hard-earned, and worth tremendous effort?
Go see the Berlin Phil for yourself if you want to understand what commitment can really look like.
Want these blog posts delivered straight to your inbox each week? Click here to subscribe.
Follow us on social media at the links below.
