bunrab | The Arts

Since we have sort of "fake" season tickets - we pick and choose some 8 concerts from among all the series during the year, and get a season ticket price for them - we don't always sit in the same place, and in fact, we deliberately vary where we sit from time to time, to try out different places in the hall. This evening we were smack in the center of the rear Orchestra (floor) level, rather than closer up but off to stage left (floor right) where we "usually" are. It turned out to be a good spot for this particular concert, as it happens, but it did bring out one particular observation that I had previously just attributed to being off on one side. And that is, that the violins, on stage right (floor left) are holding their instruments with their left arms, and so their shiny white shirt fronts show up a lot, while the violas, at stage left, their right arms not only have the black jackets on them but, when lifted, block whatever sliver of white shirt might happen to show. So stage left looks a lot darker than stage right, even though it's undoubtedly as well lighted. It seems to me that the stage techs ought to light up stage left a teensy bit brighter, just so that from the audience it appears better balanced. This isn't so much a problem in orchestras where the cellos sit on the outside, rather than the violas, but in Baltimore, the violas sit on the outside. (No telling whether once Marin is fully in charge, she might change that.)

The concert was great. This one was part of the "Explorer" series which does multimedia/artsy stuff, not just play great music. First was "Night on Bald Mountain" which I feel the guest conductor took a little bit too fast, and so the tonguing on the brass parts wasn't as crisp as it could have been. The second piece was a BSO premier of Christopher Theofanidis' "Rainbow Body." The "guest artist," if you will, was astronomer Mario Livio, from the Hubble Space Telescope Institute. What he did was narrate a series of slides, of photos from the Hubble and other space telescopes, before the piece was played, having the orchestra just play a few notes at times to illustrate a theme, a leitmotif for different kinds of novae, as it were. Then, the orchestra played the piece, with the slides going on again, but no narration. The piece was lively and loud, not at all "hearts of space" minimalist stuff, and although it was somewhat gimmicky, it was a really cool gimmick, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. We gave them a standing ovation, including the composer, who was in the audience with his wife and 10-month-old son. (Livio wore a dark business suit; Theofanidis wore a turtleneck and sports jacket.)

After intermission was Beethoven's "Pastoral" (#6), which was preceded by a very brief lecture by Livio accompanied by more slides, relating the major themes of nature that Beethoven was trying to illustrate in the Pastoral, to the birth/formation of new stars. There were no slides during the music, as Beethoven needs no gimmicks. It was an interesting idea, the birth of new starts and the renewing powers of nature.