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we & worlds
Nov. 6th, 2005 01:06 amTonight's Schickele concert sold out two weeks ago, but I showed up at the box office anyway and managed to make it in from the waiting list. Score one for careful reading of event emails, I guess.
It was standing room only by the time I got in (350 tickets were sold, which I recalled while I was reading the big red sign that said "Maximum Occupancy 250, Danger Danger Danger, No Really Guys"), so I spent the orchestral half of the concert standing in the back. They performed both Peter Schickele and P.D.Q. Bach pieces, competently enough to soothe my amateur ears: Schickele's One for the Money and Folk Song Set, and P.D.Q.'s Unbegun Symphony and 1712 Overture for Really Big Orchestra. That last was probably the most fun the rhythm section ever had: they got to play bird whistles, whack on things with hammers, and pop balloons. During the organ solo—and allow me to point out here that Skidmore's concert hall has neither organ nor organist—the remainder of the orchestra read newspapers, made phone calls, played with the unpopped balloons. I am not clever enough about classical music to get all the jokes, but I did enjoy myself, and so, clearly, did they.
After intermission the front row—which had been occupied by balloons—suddenly opened up, so I watched the choral half from the floor, not ten feet from the good professor himself. (He lip-synched a lot.) A small ensemble performed selections from The Art of the Ground Round (Please, Kind Sir is probably familiar to many of you), My Bonnie Lass She Smelleth, and two achingly lovely pieces based on poems: After Spring Sunset, which set three haiku to music and then stirred them into something new, and dominic has from an e.e. cummings poem. There were tears in my eyes during the cummings; it was gentle and secret and wistful.
I walked home, forty minutes in the dark November, and I thought about some things. Elvis Costello mocked me from my iPod.
It was standing room only by the time I got in (350 tickets were sold, which I recalled while I was reading the big red sign that said "Maximum Occupancy 250, Danger Danger Danger, No Really Guys"), so I spent the orchestral half of the concert standing in the back. They performed both Peter Schickele and P.D.Q. Bach pieces, competently enough to soothe my amateur ears: Schickele's One for the Money and Folk Song Set, and P.D.Q.'s Unbegun Symphony and 1712 Overture for Really Big Orchestra. That last was probably the most fun the rhythm section ever had: they got to play bird whistles, whack on things with hammers, and pop balloons. During the organ solo—and allow me to point out here that Skidmore's concert hall has neither organ nor organist—the remainder of the orchestra read newspapers, made phone calls, played with the unpopped balloons. I am not clever enough about classical music to get all the jokes, but I did enjoy myself, and so, clearly, did they.
After intermission the front row—which had been occupied by balloons—suddenly opened up, so I watched the choral half from the floor, not ten feet from the good professor himself. (He lip-synched a lot.) A small ensemble performed selections from The Art of the Ground Round (Please, Kind Sir is probably familiar to many of you), My Bonnie Lass She Smelleth, and two achingly lovely pieces based on poems: After Spring Sunset, which set three haiku to music and then stirred them into something new, and dominic has from an e.e. cummings poem. There were tears in my eyes during the cummings; it was gentle and secret and wistful.
we & worldsThe full community chorus took the stage then, and I had an unobstructed view of the altos' asses: there were so many of them that the semicircle of performers nearly spilled into the audience, facing away from me, and I was in real danger of having my toes trod upon. The chorus was energetic and fun, but there were a few too many Liebeslieder Polkas (that being nine), and I began to mentally wander. They closed with the lovely St. Teresa's Bookmark and a rousing Good King Kong Looked Out, and there was a lot of clapping. I couldn't see what was going on, due to the asses, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.
are
less alive
than dolls &
dream
I walked home, forty minutes in the dark November, and I thought about some things. Elvis Costello mocked me from my iPod.
