JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: This past Sunday, I had the pleasure of seeing the Portland Symphony Orchestra perform Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. To say it’s one of my favorite pieces of classical music is hardly cutting edge – almost everyone in the world has heard at least part of the choral symphony. According to IMDB, the composer has over 1,200 movie and TV music credits to his name. That’s not bad for someone who died in 1827. (Note to Beethoven lovers: start lining up your tickets now for 2027 concerts. It’s going to be lit!) One of my personal favorites is its use in that classic Christmas movie, DIE HARD, where the theme appears over and over again, first shyly, as a few violin notes, and then eventually to a rousing climax.
This performance kicked off the 100th year anniversary of the PSO (one of the few places where the Other Portland beats us out: the Oregon Symphony was formed in 1896.) The PSO did an amazing walk through its recent history as part of the opener. They invited three past Music Directors, going back to 1976, to conduct each of the symphony’s movements in order.
It was a literal passing of the baton, ending with our current Maestro, Eckart Preu, and as you can imagine, it inspired the audience to both sentimental sighs and rabid cheers. (For those of you who aren’t symphony lovers, let me assure you, the most excited fans at a baseball game have nothing on a concert hall full of classical music fans. I think it’s because we have to be SO quiet while the performance is going on. We really let ‘er rip when we’re finally released to applaud.)
So Sunday will definitely go down in my memories of Top of the 9th. (See? I also like sports!) My other two favorite moments? One was a few years ago, when my dear friend Tracy Leu, who works for the Boston Philharmonic, got me tickets to see their performance. The music was rousing and rapturous as always, but the polish on the apple was experiencing it in Symphony Hall, an extraordinary Renaissance Revival building with an extravagantly decorated interior and, according to the National Register of Historic Places, the finest acoustics in the United States. Plus, the long, shoe-box-shaped design means the people watching is excellent as well.
The first? I was listening to the start of the symphony in my car on the way to attend class at Maine Law. I remember it was winter. I don’t recall what the class was. When I found a space in the law school lot, instead of turning off the radio and hoisting my heavy backpack, I lingered to hear more. And more. Yes, dear readers, I skipped class to listen to the entirety of the 9th Symphony in a running, parked car. One of the early signs, perhaps, that I wasn’t cut out to be an attorney.
How about you, dear reader? Do you have cherished memories of
performances, either classical or not, that you like to revisit?
What a special concert, Julia . . . I do love classical music. At the moment, I get to "attend" my grandson's concerts [my daughter tapes them and then sends me a disc] so that I can enjoy listening to him play his violin . . . .
ReplyDeleteI love classical music and you are right, when the performance is over, the claps are riveting.
ReplyDeleteWhat a treat, Julia. I love the 9th. I need to go to the symphony more often.
ReplyDeleteSymphony Hall is indeed a special place with amazing acoustics, although I have a funny story about it. Years ago I went with with Hugh to a jazz concert there. Three greats, including Herbie Hancock, were playing on stage, and the tickets were expensive. And I fell asleep! After that we agreed he would find someone else to go to jazz concerts with. It's just not my thing.
I love classical music, too, and Beethoven is one of my favorite composers. I have a special memory connected to the 9th: sometimes I used to reward my sixth grade class with a movie they had earned through points. (I picked the movies, though.) One year I picked Beethoven Lives Upstairs, a charming telling of when B. rented a room from a teacher and, mad genius style, scribbled his newest composition on the walls. As it turns out, he was writing the 9th. Musicians would come to the house and practice. Then singers. And the protagonist, the landlady's young son, would be listening - as we're my students. The movie was so artfully told that they were totally immersed in the creation of this symphony, including the marvelous "Joyful, joyful ..." finale. When the movie ended, as the credits started scrolling, I got up to turn the movie off. But the students said, Oh, no, leave it on." The credits were scrolling to the music of Beethoven's 7th, that beautiful music played in the triumphant scene of The King's Speech, and they wanted to hear it. So we all listened to it through the credits.
ReplyDeleteI love classical music. When my parents began to spend their winters in Spain, they gave us their tickets to the theater (Longwharf in New Haven) and the opera for the months they were away. We saw Aida performed at the Hartford Civic Center with elephants. I can't remember if we bought those seats ourselves or if it was one of the shows they gave us.
ReplyDeleteFor the first few years we were together, we had season tickets to see the Harford Symphony with guest performers. Yitzhak Perlman was my favorite. It became more difficult to put it into our schedule and eventually we dropped it in favor of tickets to Harford Stage.
Over the years, my husband and I have gone to lots of classical music concerts in Bern, so maybe that's why when I think of a really special performance, I think of the one and only time I saw the Rolling Stones live in concert. Although I listened to their records endlessly as a teenager, I never saw them on stage until 2017, when my husband bought tickets for us and our son Tommy to go to a Stones concert in a stadium in Zürich. We had standing room, so we were surrounded by a mass of people, with the band far away on stage but lots of huge screens all around us showing us close-ups. I didn't experience any crowd fear at all. I just danced and danced to all my old favorites and sang most of them under my breath as well. Peter loved it, too, and to our surprise, Tommy seemed to know the music as well as we did and had a great time. (You never know what is flowing through your kid's headphones, do you?) That concert remains a highlight I won't forget.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really into classical music all that much beyond whatever pieces may be used in movies or TV to help amplify the drama and/or action.
ReplyDeleteThe two main experiences I have with classical music are tied to my love of heavy metal. My favorite band Savatage has a song and album called 'Hall of the Mountain King'. It is based off of the Edvard Grieg piece "In The Hall of the Mountain King". And Trans-Siberian Orchestra (which was born out of Savatage) did a non-Xmas album called 'Beethoven's Last Night' which has a fictional story about the last night of Beethoven's life and incorporates pieces of his work into the music.
I actually own a compilation of Grieg's work that has a recording of "In The Hall of the Mountain King" because of the metal connection.
Here's a clip of Savatage's "Hall of the Mountain King" with its lead-in instrumental "Prelude to Madness" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRU-c0SBbyU
Here's a link to the full Trans-Siberian Orchestra album 'Beethoven's Last Night' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYbS9EioRY&list=PLoAEg7BcaNc39a9hZwT8x_WSqna-0up3C
As for reliving performances, it is a bit easier these days because of people who record everything on their cell phones. When I go to a concert, I know that I'll be able to come home and soon find clips or full shows posted on Youtube which will allow me to view the show I was at for as long as the clips stay posted.