Rozendaal’s choice to play the Bach cellos suites was surely a deliberate callback to Rostropovich playing as the Berlin Wall fell.
The contrast between Berlin’s response and NYC’s response could hardly be more bitter, or more ironic: A newly united city shaking off decades of authoritarian repression; a gilded city sagging further into oligarchy and toward authoritarian repression. A peaceful crowd listens somberly; a defiant crowd holds back militarized police.