| Saturday, 17 May 2008 |
| Masterful Mendelssohn |
“Don’t wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don’t. In the face of all we can lose in a day, in an instant, wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together.” - Meredith Grey
Watched the 'Masterful Mendelssohn' concert by SSO today. My first ever SSO concert! I wouldn't even watch it if it wasn't for David, who suddenly called me on Wednesday asking if I wanted to watch it with him because he now had free tickets left over by her crazy sister (who wanted to mug for some GP TEST! PREPOSTEROUS!) Though highly suspicious as to why he didn't invite a girl with him instead, I was free anyway and decided that it'll be a nice, classy change to a Saturday evening that would otherwise be spent stoning at my grandma's again, so I took the arrow and flew along with it.
I've learnt from past experience that Symphony concerts can be... erm... sleep inducing. While I've never ever slept in a concert before (due to my incredible ability to let my mind wander when I am bored), I know that Symphony concerts are somewhat of a blind shot: if you are lucky and you attend one that features songs that you are familiar with, then you are probably in for a threat. But then again, if you end up in one with songs that you are completely unfamiliar with, you are entirely at the mercy of the orchestra's interpretation of the songs - you either get it, or you don't. So in what was an incredibly courageous move on my part, I decided to watch a concert which did not even feature a single song that I am familiar with. But what the heck, its always fun to take risks anyway.
Had dinner with David and later, the two of us met up with Woochiao who was, by a total stroke of good luck and coincidence, watching a Malay musical next door! I seriously wonder if Woochiao got anything out of it! He must have felt so strange to be the only Chinese member of the audience! Anyway, we had a nice time chatting and catching up before both our respective performances started. Boy, I missed dear old Woochiao and his wisecracks. I think the most important thing though was that David and I came up with conclusions that sigh, are unfortunately true.
I must say that David has good taste in music. He correctly predicted that the first half of the concert was going to be exciting, while the second half was something that we could just entirely skip. He was so bloody right. The first half of the concert had an amazing symphony by this composer called Prokofiev, who according to David, was this eccentric man who composed new aged styles in a classical way (whatever that means!) But the symphony was fantastic. It was exciting, exuberant, and very very eclectic! And then came Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, which according to David, was sort of a basic piece that all violinist had to play. It was also a very nice piece, with extremely delightful melodies. I felt like the night wasn't a total waste after all!
Then came the second half of the concert, which featured a 38 minutes symphony by Sibelius. Oh my god, it was a horror to sit through. I nearly died. I kept myself occupied half the time by staring at the ceiling and imagining scenes of carnage and fear if a phantom ala the Phantom of the Opera was to appear in the middle of the concert and bring down the giant ceiling lights onto the audience. The symphony was just noise. I think we should have listened to David's suggestion and left during the intermission.
The last piece left me exhausted and caused me to crawl my way back home. After a quick shower and lots of other administrative work, I finally blogged this entry and went to bed. A wonderful night of class and culture well spent.Labels: music, quotes |
posted by voldemort33 @ 23:59  |
|
|
|
|
|
