The title piece of the second show of the season, a couple weeks back, was Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. Who doesn't want to see that?
Well, in order to get there you had to sit through the first half of the show. I didn't know any of the pieces, but it was interesting viewing. We started out with a Strauss horn concerto. SLSO's own Roger Kaza was the soloist. It was nice to see an instrument like the horn, which usually is relegated to the background except for the Christmas concert, get to do something that was written for it. We were then joined by relatively-local soprano Christine Brewer for Berg's Seven Early Songs. Again, it was not a collection I knew anything about, but I'm always entertained by having a vocalist on stage to watch.
Then, after intermission, everyone held their breath for those famous four notes. In truth, I probably cannot write a very good review of the performance. It was so great to hear such a famous piece live (for the first time!) that I was not paying sufficient attention to the details of the performance to say anything meaningful. I would expect, however, that the performers feel the pressure of such a well-known symphony, and either have performed it before (so are comfortable with it) or spend the extra time to make sure it's as good as everyone hopes it will be. For me, it was.
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