This is a view of the building from the outside, and ...
this is a view of the auditorium, looking down from the stage. Peter and I always get more or less the same seats. They are on the left looking out from the stage, and two floors up. They are immediately over the orchestra, so apart from listening to the music you can watch what the musicians are doing. Once I saw a trombonist reading a magazine. He had it on his music stand and read when he wasn't playing.
Last night we heard two pieces of music. The first was Braham's 1st Piano Concert.
The guest pianist was a young man called Sunwook Kim. He is Korean. He is eighteen years old and last year he won the prestigeous Leeds International Pianoforte Competition.
Because of our elevated position immediately over the orchestra, we had an brilliant view of him. He played like a man possessed! He was wonderful, dipping and swaying, reaching great heights of ecstasy. During one his more orgasmic moments, I winked at him. More dipping and swaying, musical genius shining from every pore. He was positively glowing. At the end of the piece, after many curtain calls he spontaneously gave us an encore. The audience went wild. More bows, smiles, and I can't be absolutely certain, but maybe a wink in my direction!
What a little sweetheart. (Or sweetpump, for Maalie).
After the interval (when Peter downed a glass of gin) it was time for Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. This is one of my very favourites. It was my turn to dip and sway and reach great heights of ecstasy. I'll not mention a word about orgasmic moments.
Peter looked at me. He looked away. He looked again. He nudged me. "Behave yourself. Pull yourself together. You're making Beethoven blush".
62 comments:
FANTASTIC! Why didn't you invite me?
A big Iced cold bucket of water for you me thinks!
I would love to go to a concert like this (all those wallets left in the cloakroom!... Do people still wear cloaks?)
Went to the Royal Albert hall once for the last of the proms and that was great.
you do make me laff!
I am always inviting you Maalie but you are usually away chasing birds.
L.
I've wanted to see a full orchestra and top classical guitarist play Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez or Concerto de Anduluz for many a long year. I'd settle for different pieces but I feel that quite often classical or orchestral music is so lengthy and multi-faceted that it requires lots of listenings before one can really enjoy it properly. That's difficult to afford and tricky to find locally to anybody outside big cities.
Still, looks like you're attempting the sort of winking groupie route so staep back and watch those backstage passes and free tickets start rolling in.
Today's word, PAWMAP. Please inform the furball.
Furball duly informed. He's not been out for 24 hours because of the rain. What a bladder that cat must have!
It's true that you do need to know classical music, at least a bit before you can really enjoy it. When we go, which is quite regularly, usually there is one or two pieces I am unsure of. A couple of weeks ago we went to a Sibelius evening. We went mainly to hear 5th Symphony. The other pieces were weird, but that was because I didn't know them.
My favourite is early and medieval choral works, but they aint everyone's cup of tea.
Yes, and you left me all by myself all evening.
Too jealous to comment. By the way, the magazine on the trobonist's music stand; that's called the score.
If I am nice to Peter, will he take me to the B hall one evening?
Sulk
sorry, trombonist.
I'll ask him Ann, but you'll have to be very, very nice. Nudge, nudge.
Lorenzo.
How nice? Do you mean nice in the biblical sense?
Wonderful building. I guess this is part of "the new Manchester."
Still, you can't polish a turd...
KIDDING!! Half the bands I like are from the North.
I saw the Halle in the Free Trade Hall, and played along with them from the audience with my clarinet - it wasn´t just me, don´t worry, they had an audience participation piece.
Have you checked all the corners and cupboards? I´m sure no cat has a bladder that strong.
Sounds like a wonderful concert in a beautiful building.
I will never be quite able to keep a straight face again when I call my wee niece a 'sweetheart'.
You'd be lucky to catch maalie even in the country these days for a concert;-)
What an OUTSTANDING Stage!The feeling when you hear music being played right next to you...LIVE is SOOO DREAMY and exciting! I bet that it just would take one's breath away to see that live! I sooo wish I could see that in person. Thank you for sharing it with us!
*HUGS*
What a beautiful concert hall! Very modern, too. I think they could use my stagehand skills there... :D
number 7 is my favorite too...
> Once I saw a trombonist reading a magazine.
Was it a runcible magazine? E. used to say it was always the brass section that was the most runcible.
I like the 7th too, but my fave is 3rd (the Erotica, I think).
It was kind of Mr Kim to pose for you to take the photograph. I was invited to Sylvie Guillem's (ballerina) dressing room after a performance in Paris. She was dressed.
I wonder how it would feel to be so completely elated, and yet so utterly disapointed at the same time - as I like to imagine you would have been upon entering the dressing room Maalie!
I am jealous too Lorenzy, I would have liked to be there. I spent all afternoon listening to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack today. I like the piano/string combination.
wonderful post..I could almost feel the music ...and what an auditorium !
The wear and tear of a concert! :-)
Every time I listen to the Seventh, when the Allegretto comes around, I am putty ( here I have Karajan for you, for a little comfort, til you get to the concert hall again *g*).
Maalie:
In Vienna, there's an Eroica Alley. It leads into vineyards. ;-)
Lorenzo,
I wasn't at Sir Edmund's funeral, that was closed to the public. But while the casket was lying in state from Monday morning to the funeral, I was rostered on to stand guard right beside the casket itself. It's called a Catafalque Vigil.
It really was an honour.
Yes, yes, yes, but Martin is so funny!
"all those wallets left in the cloakroom!.." Ha ha, what a git!
sorry LtL, I can't comment 'over there'. I see the mark fellow has been calling an other a 'fool', and I really can't stand to go back there.
QUOTE:
"Lorenzo is a potter; she understands so many things of a spiritual nature just from that but the bloody false Catholic theology and other things she has picked up on her searching get in the way of understanding the true character of God and His provision for her. The enemy does want to rob, kill and destroy!"
Of course, you will be welcomed in the Church of the Unitarian Universalists, should you wish to consider them.
Seattle Boy, welcome to my blog. I haven't seen that particular quote. Where did it come from?
Lorenzo.
Hi Lorenzo, Just thought I'd make a visit over to your blog. What a beautiful concert hall. Alas, I do not care for classical, symphony type music. I can certainly appreciate the giftedness of the composers and musicians! I used to be a dancer (not professional, though), but other than than, I don't have any musical talents.
Popped over to say goodnight only to find a lovely new post! Oh, I am so very jealous - what glorious fun it sounds like you had to sit and listen.
I remember the days when my hands used to fly over the keys - but never like this young man - still I miss those days - it was good way to soothe my soul.
The quote is from me telling someone about you and being mad at the bloody nuns for scaring you as a little girl and making you think you had to earn you way into heaven. As to where he got it - he had to search to find it, as it was personal - seems he's as much a mischief maker as I assumed when I read his posts on the "name not to be spoken" blog.
Night
Rubberllama, I just spotted you cavorting with a yellow duck! :-)))
Seattle Boy seems to have withdrawn from the fray. That Bluecollar site seems very introspective and they seem very unwelcoming to anyone outside their immediate blog ring. I think that is 5 or 6 of us now who have been effectively sent packing. However, let's move on.
Have you ever been to the Birmingham Symphony Hall? It also is beautiful, C used to take me (one of the things I miss, actually), I have been to concerts by Kris Kristofferson and Cecilia Bartoli there, ans well as some good orchestral stuff.
No Maalie I haven't been there. I have been to the Royal Festival Hall and Royal Opera House, and the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. The Free Trade Hall in Manchester was a grand old building but rotton accoustics.
Good morning, Lorenzo.
Apparently you left me a comment on Christian Chapter Chat, which is an old book reading blog. My friend forwarded your comment to me via email. Thanks for your nice comment, too.
Next time, catch me over at my regular blog, Journey of the Heart. Come visit any time!
Maalie, the invitation is always open to you to discuss spiritual matters at my blog, as well.
How did the indigenous Patagonians wake themselves up in the morning?
They used an a-llama clock! Hahaha!
There's not much more to say, is there, after that last comment?
I usually listen to classical music all day coming through little Bose speakers hitched up to my computer. Sometimes it's BBC3 coming through, but as the day wears on, the transmission gets fainter and fainter . . .
This is irrelevant, but who cares. I ate chocolate biscuits today, too Lorenzo. 4 hobnobs to be precise. It's that blasted secretary of ours who is on a diet and keeps bringing in all the bad things out of her cupboards in order to feed them to us. I've a good mind to pour lard in her mid morning smoothie.
>I've a good mind to pour lard in her mid morning smoothie.
That's not a very Christian attitude Magdalene. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.
Silly Maalie; It's 'Fajitas are mine!' sayeth the Lard. It's not surprising you get chucked off Christian blogs if you keep getting this stuff wrong.
Quite right Mags. He's an ignoramous, aint he?
Mind you, lard in the smoothie does does tempting. She probably won't taste it either.
L.
Get thee to a nunnery, thou trollop.
I think I'm going to be a Scientologist. They believe that aliens imprisoned other aliens in volcanoes on earth and blew them up, their souls eventually being reincarnated as humans.
I think that is easily as credible as Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark.
Oh darn, I forgot where I parked my arch. Maalie???
Ark.
That's right.
Me llama... nice of you to be concerned about our weather. It has nicely cooled down... our daytimes are in the mid-2os...much more sensible.... and night-times need a little more than a sheet again so are sleep-able. Hope your rain has stopped!
good evening to you - just popping over to say at a break in work. I have been over to Maalie's to complain of the weather and to ask for more lovely pictures to remind me that spring does come eventually.
I wish you would post pictures of some of your pots - are you still throwing pots? You haven't mentioned it in quite some time.
I used to listen to a classical music radio station while I was at work, music soothing the troubled soul and all that.... but now that i don't have to go to the Siberian salt mines any more I seem to have got out of the classical listening habit. Will have to get back into it methinks.
Throwing pots lorenzo? is that before or after the evenings boozing session?
Todays word is: jinantonik
Hello?
Hello???
HELLO!!!!!
My name is Martin and it is a pleasure to meet you.
Good night
Ooh, who is this Martin? He sounds like such a pleasant, polite and sensible chap, I may have to go and say hello.
Lorenzo, I often wonder the same as halfmom, when do we get to see you throwing pots?
What's all this about throwing pots?
Gosh, this is a beautiful post and the photography is excellent.
I came over from Martin Stickland's blog.
Lorenzo,
I wish I could have been there. Music halls can sound, oh so good. And I love Brahms and Beethoven (most of that).
But it sounds very good! And good photos, as always. (why don't they ever show these composers smiling?)
Repent all you sinners. The end of the world is nigh. An asteroid could hit the earth on Tuesday
How do I know if I've won?
I sure as heck hope they have got their maths right on that asteroid missing us ;-)
Kiwi, yeh, it passed by the earth harmlessly at 06.35 GMT today. Did you now they reckon that 3/4 of the extinctions of species on this planet were due to asteroid impacts? It is statistically certain to happen again. Next year? Ten years? Ten thousand years, who can tell?
Maybe so, but there is also a body of thought that it wasn't the big asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs... that they were already on their way out for whatever other reasons.... well before the asteroid impact.
Not according to the fundamentalists Kiwi.
what do you suppose it is that fundamenalists think about dinosaurs Lorenzo?
Did I tell you that your book is on the way? They say it shipped from the US and should be there sometime in the next 2 weeks.
According to Craver vii they drowned in the great flood. It seems that koalas made it from Australia; sloths made it from South America; polar bears made it from the Arctic; and pandas made it from China. They all (teo million species) found their way to the Ark located in the Middle east through some astonishing migration (a Koala couldn't swim across a swimming pool, let along the Pacific). But the dinosaurs apparently didn't.
Kiwi, you are quite right, there are alternative theories about the demise of the dinosaurs, the asteroid is but one of them.
lorenzo... whatever nonsense the fundamentalists use to 'explain' away the dinosaurs in recent millenniums is of no interest to me ;-)
Hi Lorenzo :-)
I saw on Martin's blog you wanted to message me but didn't know which of my many ****** sites to do it from :-)
Actually, any blog gets the message through to me immediately at a central point.
However, if you visit http://hopcottfictionblog.hopcott.net/ and leave a preliminary message as a comment, I'll be able to see your email address that you enter into the comment box and will email you back with my email address.
This keeps both our email addresses out of the public view and you can be assured that your email address will not be misused.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Rob
Post a Comment