March 4,Rotterdam Rotterdam, March 8 and 9 (different programs. The Big Beast is on the 8th, Gustav Mahler's 9th Symphony from 1910. He was from Austria but had absconded to New York, where he ran the Philharmonic for a huge salary, thanks to J.P. Morgan.

Sort of amazing to have two such major orchestras descend on Florida at almost the same time. Daytona Beach for a long time had the London Symphony every other year.

How do these Black Tie affairs go ? Is there a Formal Mosh Pit , where the Champagne and Caviar crowd let their hair down ? Just curious .... ( PS : Only joking , no offense .)

Bad Religion just cost me $150 a ticket, maybe I should don the black tie?



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I was right.

Cole : You have not properly " Crowd Surfed " until you have done it to Beethovens 9TH !

Kravis doesn't have a dress code for audiences. The Vienna is probably one of the most traditional orchestras and I suspect they wear something other than the traditional US white tie (which is fast disappearing).

Orchestral music is a bit weird. Lots of composer technique, and sometimes the rating of compostitions seems a bit like scoring gymnastics or surfing. Points for a double fugue here, development of a theme there, clever orchestration if it's light music. With all the technical stuff, which got even more complex in the 20th century, it's impressive how much of it has real individuality.

In 1780 or so, orchestras were small. By 1900, there might be 90 musicians on stage and maybe harp(s), piano, or once in a while, even the auditorium's organ. So some of the music, on top of being complex, got to be an auditory spectacle. Gustav Mahler, a busy conductor as well as composer, revised Beethoven symphonies to take advantage of orchestras triple the size of Beethoven's era. In the 20 century, there was some reaction to that and it was back to smaller ensembles, or off into adopting from jazz. Still more compositional techniques. Some very influential composers took up minimalism--Philip Glass with his operas among them. In the US, movie music, usually composed and performed pretty fast, sometimes has moviegoers listening to music they'd never, ever go to a concert to hear. Or might love to do so. John Williams's music for blockbuster movies is still wildly popular. I got to watch two of the three early Star Wars movies on a fairly big screen above the Jacksonville Symphony playing the musical track beneath. The 3-D auditory experience (my ears are pretty good at placing where the sounds come from) and sound quality emphasized that those movies are a lot like operas. The music really drives the visual action and spoken stuff along. Williams works in a popular tradition that started with Dvorak in the late 1800s (folk music, including the American sorts), continued in the 1930s with the likes of Aaron Copland and Bela Bartok and (movies) Korngold and a whole bunch of others, including Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Fielding (Star Trek and The Wild Bunch, check his Wikipedia page--nasty 1950s politics).

Cole, you coming down south for BR, or St Aug?
A bunch of my friends from Satellite and CFL are coming down, some other 2ndlighters too.

The Amp is St Auggie. It's one of my favorite venues.

It would be fun to hang with you guys down south. Alert me to any good shows in your area.

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I was right.