Symphonic dyslexia and other musings

So, R and I went to the Symphony Saturday night. St. Paul Chamber Orchestra at the Ordway. It worked out perfectly because our significant others waited for us at the Irish pub around the corner. The first piece of music was, for lack of a better description: Symphonic Dyslexia. The conductor before they started said it was a very challenging piece to play. The work is from a modern composer. Modern enough to be working with the SPCO as well as composing pieces for a few of their musicians. So anyway, he was describing the piece and giving us examples of the different influences in the piece, a little Mozart, and little jazz, a little samba.

Then they started to play. And I have no other way to describe it but painful. It's hard to play because there is no melody, no flow, no tempo, no, hmm, how to say this.........no MUSIC. You know those scenes in the movies where the little kids at the school band all play crap at once and the sound makes your ears bleed. That might begin to describe the piece we listened to.

Okay, so I am probably exaggerating a little.

I tried to envision something redeeming about the piece. And I decided that it sounded like something that would accompany an animated pictorial of New York city. A little chaos, a little street noise, a little bird twittering in the park, a little murder and mayhem, demolition, rain, and maybe some street musicians thrown into the images.

Anyway, the rest of the evening was amazing. They played Shumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor. With Garrick Ohlsson on piano. It was a marvelous piece. And received a standing ovation. After intermission they played Schubert's Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, Tragic. Again, marvelous. Stupendous, and made for a perfect evening.

All in all a pretty nice weekend. And it's nice that I have someone here in the cities that enjoys the symphony. My hubby went with me because he is a sweet and thoughtful person but it's not his cup of tea. Now, I have someone to go with that loves it. And my hubby (and hers) can do what they love, enjoy a cold one at a local bar.

Speaking of girls will be girls and boys will be boys. We also have figured out that we can do this with movies. So we have a movie night to plan in the near future. The boys will be at one house watching Milla movies. And the girls will be at the other watching chick flicks. (and eating chocolate) First up for us will be the Bridget Jones movies.

I continue to enjoy the Simon R. Green books. Due to other projects I made very little headway in them this weekend though :-(. But Hex and the City opens with this on the first page : "However, when you work as a private investigator in the Nightside, that hidden magical heart of London, where gods and monsters walk side by side, and sometimes attend the same self-help groups, some cases almost inevitably lead you to the most unpleasant places."