Comments

What a great blog! I'm an adult and I wish more of these type concerts could be done geared to us. I missed out in my very early years on being exposed to classical music so I've always played catch up.

Opening night of our symphony last season was educational. The conductor opened by explaining that we were going to go backwards in time from Beethoven to Handel.

They started with a pretty full complement of the orchestra with a Beethoven symphony. At the finish, the conductor said the next piece would be Mozart, but as with the times, the orchestra would be smaller. At that, many musicians left the stage and the Mozart piece was played.

Then the conductor said the final piece would be Handel and as with his time, the orchestra would be even smaller. Again, even more musicians left the stage. He then said that the symphony would be played as it would prabably have been played at the time also, so they all stood to play.

The conductor had much more to say, a lot of it was to ask us to notice the influences one composer had on another. I was engroseed with the whole thing.

My sisters, OTOH, were a bit perturbed. One comment was "I didn't come to the symphony to be lectured". She had a point, and perhaps this should have been labeled "educational" and presented as a special program, but I really appreciated it.

Often, symphonies offer pre-concert lectures, usually given by the conductor of the orchestra. I'm sure the quality of these varies widely, depending on the communication skills of different conductors. But it's a nice idea; it makes the concerts more interesting to know about the music being played. Yes. We always get to the concert an hour early to attend this presentation. It normally will include Q and A from the night's soloist too.