I have listened to that piano concerto for so many times that I thought it was going to be a sing-along at best. But Mr. B surprised me!! I even thought I heard something I didn't know war there before. He is a heavy-build Russian guy and he's got big hands and big fingers but his soft andante passages sounded so gentle and light-footed it's almost comical. You see the silhouette of a big man but you hear the footsteps of a fawn. (He also reminded me of my dad, who when used to self teach to play the piano, complained all the time about his finger being too big for the keys.) And my goodness the power of the opening chords!! For people with weak hearts, those few seconds could be dangerous. I was transfixed though.
I was a little uncertain about Stravinsky before I went. I thought I was going for Tchaikovsky, and I would just bear with Mr. S. But the Firebird just blew me away and I felt like a soccer mom at the standing ovation when I heard myself cry "Bravo!!" Never before in any concert was I so moved that the utterance was so spontaneous and I didn't even feel embarrassed. For the entirety of the ballet (it was written for ballet but last night was, of course, without the dancers and all that) the orchestration was worse (?) than the gophers popping up from holes at some game booth in a carnival. You simply couldn't but follow to where it was taking you. Busy, multi-faceted, intertwining, but absolutely beautiful. It satisfied my imagination and pumped up adrenalin. I was so worked up after I went home as to need to unwind before I could go to bed.
Went to see Salome at the Renaissance 14 theatre this morning at 10. It's an one act opera by Richard Stauss. It's unusual to see a sea of silver hair in a theatre at this location. And afterwards we existed slowly, holding onto the handrails. I told myself to be patient and just start practicing being slow as I will get there one of these days. The opera is set at Jesus' time and it's the story of King Herold and John the baptist. The production, however, uses modern costume and staging. At first, I was very annoyed by that and couldn't reconcile the difference between time and space. I began to realize later into the opera, the theme of human struggles around life and death, love and hate, lust and true passion, transcends time and space and the incongruence in the visual presentation and our intellectual expectation in fact accentuates the pull. Another surprise, for me, is how avant-guard Strauss sounded. You would think there would at least be some beautiful, waltz like, melodies here and there, given our normal association of his name with particular genre of music. But not in this opera. I thought they sounded pretty Shoenberg and the whole time I was waiting for some "regular" melody built on the "regular" 7-note major scale. My ears were not tired though. Not like when I listen to Shoenberg. (I am sorry, but I really can't stand this man.) The only "good guy" in the whole opera was, of course, John the baptist. And it's only when he sang, I could hear some melody and it was quite a relief!! I thought, hm...now it makes sense. When the "bad guys" sing, there is dissonance and clashing chords and the music agonizes me. When the "good guy" sings, you relax and you are even comforted. That's it! I don't know if Mr. Strauss intended this dichotomy, but to me, that's a good enough reason.
Tomorrow is Sunday and in the afternoon I will have Bach rehearsal again. I am traveling in time (backward though) with these great composers in a span of three short days. What can I say! I love music and Life is good.
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