Vertigo
Through Chad - and the Y - I've become friends with a lovely guy whose locker happens to be near mine at the gym. Paul is, I think, between 80 and 85, a retired New York City English teacher, multilingual, with passions for movies, theater, and classical music. The latter is the most intersesting, at least for me. Paul has subscriptions to just about every institution you can name: The Met, City Opera, the Phil, Carnegie, on and on - always in the cheap section, and always for two seats. He then calls his friends and asks them to join him - of course, I pay for my ticket, he's a retired English teacher for heaven's sake. And it's wonderful.
There are occasional disadvantages. Last night we were at Avery Fisher for a program of (Attributed to) Bach (more later), Ligeti, Bach (confirmed), and Schubert. Minor problem: we were on one side of the very highest tier, in a narrow balcony whose banister came to my mid-thigh.
I thought I was going to have to crawl to my seat on my knees, which would have been a problem because my torso takes up a lot more room than my calves. I made it, barely, and survived, although I will now ask Paul where the tickets are located before I say "yes."
All was lovely, with the possible exception of the Ligeti concerto - a modern piece, rather self-consciously difficult, lovely bits and pieces but mostly disjointed. It called for the violin soloist to compose his own cadenza, and that was gorgeous, but for the life of me I could identify nothing that linked it to the rest of the concerto. This is when I wish I'd taken a musicology class in college.
The Schubert - the Third symphony - was nicely played, although I don't know it (or most classical music, for that matter) well enough to have an opion. Ditto the two Bach* pieces. With an * because, as the program noted, recent scholarship doubts that Bach wrote the Toccata & Fugue in D Minor - the magnificently overripe organ work that Stokowski adapted for orchestra, best known from the opening of Fantasia. There's apparently no copy extant in Bach's hand, and the oldest known version was published by a guy with reputation of palming off others' work as Bach. Who knew?
And it's been a long day and I'm going home now.
There are occasional disadvantages. Last night we were at Avery Fisher for a program of (Attributed to) Bach (more later), Ligeti, Bach (confirmed), and Schubert. Minor problem: we were on one side of the very highest tier, in a narrow balcony whose banister came to my mid-thigh.
I thought I was going to have to crawl to my seat on my knees, which would have been a problem because my torso takes up a lot more room than my calves. I made it, barely, and survived, although I will now ask Paul where the tickets are located before I say "yes."
All was lovely, with the possible exception of the Ligeti concerto - a modern piece, rather self-consciously difficult, lovely bits and pieces but mostly disjointed. It called for the violin soloist to compose his own cadenza, and that was gorgeous, but for the life of me I could identify nothing that linked it to the rest of the concerto. This is when I wish I'd taken a musicology class in college.
The Schubert - the Third symphony - was nicely played, although I don't know it (or most classical music, for that matter) well enough to have an opion. Ditto the two Bach* pieces. With an * because, as the program noted, recent scholarship doubts that Bach wrote the Toccata & Fugue in D Minor - the magnificently overripe organ work that Stokowski adapted for orchestra, best known from the opening of Fantasia. There's apparently no copy extant in Bach's hand, and the oldest known version was published by a guy with reputation of palming off others' work as Bach. Who knew?
And it's been a long day and I'm going home now.