Symphonic Switch-Up

On Saturday, I attended the symphony.  It was a wonderful experience.  I truly truly love music in all its forms.  And symphony music helps me raise my normal standards.

As I sat in the concert hall, folded into my little seat, between two people that I had never met, I tried to recall the last time I had attended the symphony.

New Year's Eve or rather Silvester.  Philharmonie Essen.  The music of the evening?  West Side Story and Porgy and Bess.  The concert hall was brand new, beautiful, large and bright with not a bad seat in the house.  The hall was completely filled, mostly with white-haired married couples.  Looking over the audience, I noted that most of them looked like my own grandparents.

The orchestra itself was superb.  The orchestra director, although I did not understand a word he said, was animated and lively.  His concertmaster was young but so much fun to watch.  The soloists were excellent although I must admit my sister appreciated them much more than I did because of her classical vocal training.  As the orchestra played the American music so familiar to me, I looked around the audience and wondered what everyone else thought about it.  When the orchestra played, "Mambo" the director turned around for the audience to yell, "Mambo!" and the response was less than enthusiastic.  But the violinists made up for it by yelling and even jumping up a little in their seats.  And my sister and I cheered with the violinists.  I wondered if the German audience somehow felt the animated and the not-quite-the-classical opera music below their normal standards or just that they somehow did not get the feeling of American music.

Ironically, part of the music on Saturday's programme was German composer Gustav Mahler's Rückert-Lieder which consisted of lyrics sung in German by a talented and wonderful soloist.  Listening to her German, I thought back to my experience in Germany and looked around the audience.  This audience looked entirely different composed of as many young students as white-haired season ticket holders and people strolled past me during the breaks spoke in multiple languages and multiple forms of dress ranging from flannel pajama pants to furs.  But looking around the audience and hearing the beautiful words and reading their translation, I wondered if we truly understood the beauty of the music or appreciating it as those in Essen would have.  I wondered if the soloist looked at us appreciating the music and wanted us to liven up a little at her words.  And yet, I also thought about how much those words spoke, in many ways, the exact thoughts and hopes of my heart and I wondered if perhaps I had underestimated the response of the audience in Essen.  


Music, indeed, can and does transcend language and culture.