Random notes from the proms

[jamjar]

Back stage gossip is interesting, even when it's about people you don't know, organisations in a field you really don't know much about, and occasionally in a language you haven't studied since you were sixteen.

The New Zealand orchestra was the happiest orchestra I've ever seen, and with one of the rowdiest audiences. People snuggled to Mahler songs about an army of dead soldiers going to visit someone's sweetheart. Also, you can tell when a singer does a lot of opera by how much they sing to the audience.

I really want to listen to that bizarre Alice In Wonderland opera when it's finished.

William Walton's Symphony No. 1 is the classical-music-for-the-dumped. It has four movements, which are basically Angry, Bitter (to be played, according to the program, con maliza), Regret and I'm-mostly-okay-but-I'm-still-not-entirely-over-you. I heartily reccomend it, not least because it sounds exactly like it should.

I like it when the soloist and the conductor hug at the end like they really mean it, especially when the solist is tall, talented, pretty and young (and a nice guy, but spoilt, according my aunt who Knows Things).


So basically, it was pretty good to go to. Some bits I liked more than others- I cannot stay awake during a slow movement to save my life- but I'm glad I went to all of them.

I feel so cultured.

Comments

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

I feel vicariously cultured through you.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

*Slings some more culture your way.*

See, I'm really not, but my aunt, and one of her friends who is a season-ticket prommer, are so terribly knowledgable that I get some just by proxy.

That and the programmes, which are terribly informative.