Incredible

So I am a violin student, which is to say my skills are far below amateur, but slightly above cats fighting in a bag. Its not difficult to get a couple of notes out of the thing, but getting them to line up and hang out together in a meaningful way is a mean feat.

Sysguy somewhat reluctantly joined me for a "casual friday" concert at Disney hall, featuring Hilary Hahn as the violin soloist. I've heard she's really great, so I was looking forward to it. It was awesome!! Together with the orchestra she performed a Glazunov violin concerto in A minor, Op 82. I don't know why they name stuff that way. I have no idea what it means, but the music was great. I know, I'm musically illiterate. Whatever.

Anyway, after the Glazunov, she performed this piece as an encore. O. My. God.

Can you believe it?! The fingers! With the bowing! Plus the pizz sometimes with the still bowing and the fingers? It was incredible. (Even Sysguy was moved to say that it was interesting. He didn't really like it, but it was interesting...but was it the opposite of fun? Hmmm)

Next, while Ms. Hahn was presumably applying tourniquets to her bleeding fingertips, the orchestra alone performed the Tchaikovsy Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture (conducted by Leonard Slatkin, if that is meaningful to ya.) It was lovely, and comfortingly recognizable to some people....

After the performances, there was a little chat session where people got to ask questions of the conductor, Ms. Hahn, and one of the Phil violinists (Dale Briedenthal, a local girl from the south side who is in the second violins). It was interesting in that they went over a theme my instructor had emphasized the same day: make the piece look easy enough that the audience can relax and enjoy it instead of empathising with the musician. Someone asked how Ms. Hahn made the more difficult pieces seem so easy, she said, "well, they're all hard, you have to get past that for a successful performance". Oy. Ms. Hahn said a friend of hers in the audience had requested the Schubert encore piece. Thank you, whoever you are.

On another note, this was our first concert at the Disney Hall (Thing 1 has been 3 times already!). The sound was fine; we were in the nosebleed seats, so we have no other spot to compare to as yet. The building is really beautiful, yeah, but the almost total lack of right angles actually made it feel like walking on a rolling ship deck to me. It was weird, very few of the walls hit the floor at a right angle, so there's no reference point, which I apparently need in order to not walk like a drunk. C'est la vie.