Will and I found a seat at the Woodruff Center Concert Hall. The website said that admission to the Atlanta Symphony?s Sampler Concert was free, but insisted that you needed tickets. When we got there, however, we found that they weren?t even checking for tickets and people were allowed to sit wherever they wanted.
I looked around me at other people filing their way in. I saw people taking pictures of their orchestra with their cell phones and felt a tinge of snobbery well up in me. They were probably only there because the concert was free. I then realized that I had forgotten to bring the printout that told you when you were supposed to applaud. I mean, were you supposed to clap between movements? I didn?t remember?.
The special musical guest walked onto the stage and we applauded.
The conductor walked on stage and we applauded.
The conductor was a short Asian woman and a long white coat that made her look like she would be more at home in a lab than a concert hall. After briefly welcoming us, she turned and stabbed at the air with her baton. The orchestra exploded into the first movement of Beethoven?s 5th. I?d never heard it performed live and the hair on my arm stood on end as the tiny woman slashed and jabbed at the orchestra as if she were willing an untamed animal into submission. Her gesturing was so emphatic, there were a couple of moments that I thought that she was going to fall off her podium.
The orchestra finished the movement with escalating passion and the audience erupted into applause. The old lady sitting next to me was smiling from ear to ear with pleasure. The emcee emerged from backstage and asked how many people where there for the first time. I raised a sheepish hand and Will raised a cautious one. He said that the question ?Who?s here for the first time?? was sometimes a dangerous one. I realized that I agreed, especially amongst classical musicians ? I knew that they could be a dangerous bunch.
In between performances by composers such as Mendelssohn and Bach, the emcee explained the benefits of purchasing a concert series by the orchestra with a tone that made us feel as though we were trying to be sold a cultural time-share. He was usually brief, however, and the orchestra was soon playing a concerto. The audience clapped between movements, so we did, too.
Just about when I started to fall asleep during the performance, it was over. The orchestra played the last few bars with such energy that I thought the conductor and orchestra were going to tear themselves apart. The audience?s following applause was an opened floodgate of noise and the old lady next to me leapt to her feet in a fit of ecstasy. I realized that these guys were good at what they did. Give you just the right amount so that the last thing you remember about the experience was the joy on an old woman?s face as she cheered and not what you were dreaming about as the conductor put down her baton.
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I find the culture of classical music quite interesting. It’s become exclusively high-brow, although there really is no reason that it needs to be. As with most high-brow stuff, there is excessive praise heaped on everyone involved, including those that attend. At least that’s the way I’ve always felt.