Order in the concert hall…order I say
The last post did turn out into a meandering long post, but this one will be shorter I promise. I’ll leave it to two musical excerpts to make my points. And my points again are:
1. Let’s start off concerts with a bang. Mozart knew that when he wrote his opera overtures. Stick with what works.
2. Let’s play the music at the tempo that it was intended for. Especially in Reich’s pulsed music. I mean, the man named the three movements of his “Three Movements” piece after metronome beats. Glass did it as well in his Violin Concerto.
Exciting finish to Three Movements (which came second in the lineup 3/25)
Somewhat less exciting finish to Variations (which came first for some reason)
A medium slog to the finish for Variations (in the tempo that it sounded like)
I’ll concede one thing though…maybe they played that order to allow for some elaborate stage change (which indeed did take place). The other reason is they believe somehow that it is better to end the first half rather than start off with a bang. I can see the logic in that but still disagree…especially with introducing civilians into the classical music realm.
