I'm late in posting about this, but I wanted to be sure to chronicle it just the same. Every year, EB and I try to do something in the spirit of Halloween because we both love the holiday and the season. It's been suitably gloomy around here for at least part of each day the last couple of weeks, so we were in the perfect mood for a Halloween celebration. That being the case, on Sunday we attended a concert at Benaroya Hall presented by the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra called "Music's Darkest Harvest". I got the tickets via one of the crowd-sourced discount programs--LivingSocial or AmazonLocal or something like that. Anyway, the program was full of seasonally appropriate music, including:
- Rachmaninoff"s "The Isle of the Dead"
- Herrmann's "Concerto Macabre" (from the film "Hangover Square")
- Liszt's "Totentanz"
- Chopin's "Funeral March"
- Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain"
The encore turned out to be delightfully familiar: "Funeral March of the Marionettes" (also known as the theme from Alfred Hitchcock Hour).
The soloist was the marvelous Peter Mack on piano who gave a theatrical and energetic performance.
We stayed for the Q&A with the director and soloist after the concert. Both men answered questions with generosity and enthusiasm, the director with an almost manic, obsessive energy.
We had a delicious, decadent dinner afterwards at
The Brooklyn, a steakhouse within a couple of blocks of the concert hall. It couldn't have been a nicer afternoon, with more than a touch of the haunting spirit about it.