Friday, September 26, 2008

Symphony of a Thousand

Last night, the DH and I enjoyed an evening at the symphony care of Ken. We love Ken and he's a great friend. He also loves Mahler. So for the DH's birthday (which isn't until November, but the Mahler symphony was in September, so go with it), his friend bought us tickets to his favorite symphony.

To be honest, I wasn't convinced this was going to be too great. Mahler lived in the late 1800' to early 1900's and it's just not my favorite period of symphonic music. There's too much dischord there and it can be hard to listen to.

The first 10-15 minutes of Mahler's 8th symphony was about what I was expecting. Then it started getting better and just kept on improving. I looked at my watch an hour and 15 minutes into it and couln't believe how fast the time had flown.

The piece builds and builds until it almost explodes off the stage. There were over 300 voices, strings, woodwinds, horns, percussion, and more. There was organ, piano, and harp. And the ending was so grand and beautiful that it brought me to my feet.

I'm not a standing ovation kind of gal, but this actually brought me to my feet without any thought. It was one of the most enjoyable evenings of music I can remember in a long time. It's not often that you're carried away by the music, but this was one of those nights.


This isn't the Seattle Symphony, but it can give you a taste for the scale of the ending.

2 comments:

TinkerDoodle said...

**Frozen IPOD** hold the circle, and menu at the same time for like 10 secs or so til u see the apple, ur songs wont be deleted and u can once again blast ur tunes ;)

Lucy van Pelt said...

Thanks, Tinkerdoodle!