There is a time and a place for Romantic music – but it is not for when I’m a giant stressball. I want something with repetitions and quiet beauty that will get into my bones and make me relax when that happens. An overture like La Forza is too full of cartoon stress – and it sort of makes a mockery of actual emotion when one is actually feeling sturm und drang.
…but like I said, there is a time for Romantic music, and yesterday morning I got a chance to listen to James Ehnes play Massenet’s Meditation from behind the orchestra, just to the right of the horns and just behind the harp, and because they were projecting away from me, most of the instrumental sounds blended together in an impressionistic wash 
(even the solo violin, which, by the way, sounded so dark as to be beautiful like a viola, way to go Antonio Stradivari and James) except for the horns occasional colour note and the harp’s arpeggios which were in sharp focus…it was like this:
Or this: 
You know? It’s an interesting way to see and hear something which might not otherwise seem striking – a few details sharply clear and the main theme obscured. I think I’ll probably end up backstage-listening more often.
Anyway, this concert with James Ehnes was really great apart from La Forza which, like I said, I didn’t like because of the timing for me. He played two of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and while I am heartily sick of that piece* he played it really, really well. (Also, string orchestras are so homogenous as to be relaxing.) There were a couple of moments in the trio sections when the soloist plays with the principals of Violins I and II where I was like…disconcerted? It felt a little seasick, like a film just a teeeeeny bit out of sync…but, you know, James is really good at the violin.
Seriously.
Dawna described this concert as “music that makes people open their wallets” and hey: true facts. There were some Kreisler things and Ballet Music from Faust and the Zampa Overture by Hérold (about whom we could find very little information for the pre-show slides, boo), and it was fun!
Story time! I got a call a couple of months back from a woman in a city about an hour west of KW. She told me that her four-year-old son was James Ehnes’ biggest fan, that he watched the DVD every day (more than Backyardigans!), that he had asked to take violin lessons. I got to arrange for them to meet at intermission!
This is what makes working in the arts worthwhile.
Also! Does everyone remember those Classical Kids stories? We had them all when I was little on cassette, and we listened to them so often that now whenever I hear The Four Seasons I get the corresponding emotional and story associations from “Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery“.
*Kirill Gerstein once said that there is no such thing as bad music, just overplayed music (for some pieces, that number is in the single digits). I really like that! And I think it explains a lot.
Everyone knows the new year begins in September. School supplies and class schedules, room numbers and brand-new non-scuff sneakers with the curly laces you don’t have to tie. For musicians, for orchestras, September is about new beginnings, too. Kick-off concerts and hype from the press.
Anyway! It was a good concert, and (shockingly) the first CD release I’d ever been to. Way to go Kathryn! Nicely done. In other news: your CD cover makes me nostalgic for my sordid history with Christian Pop and I love it.
