...as Monty Python would say. Last night, just two days after Bluegrass Overload, we returned to the Fairgrounds for an antidote of full-frontal Classical.
For such little towns in the sticks, there is quite a large selection of live performance art, here in GV/NC. Music in the Mountains is a professional orchestra/chorus that performs a series of programs four times a year. It can run from "serious" classical to pops to Christmas/holiday music. And it's good! Some of the summer programs are held outside on the grass, but most of the rest are performed in the same large, open building where the farm displays are assembled during the County Fair. Just add a stage and risers.
I know it's TMI (perhaps a good subtitle for this whole blog), but this program started off with Schubert (Overture in C Major), Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G Major (so fun!), and Hayden's Symphony #21 in A. But then...
I've never considered myself a "Romantic Period"-sort of a person. I love Baroque and Classical. However, Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto (C minor). Well. It just breaks my heart. It lifts my soul. It melts my brain cells into mush. A youngish pianist (aren't they all?), Timothy Durkovic, did a lovely job in the lead roll (with a few pesky little timing issues). It's one of those pieces everyone has heard (popular in sound tracks, and the tune was stolen for "Full Moon and Empty Arms"--can you get drippier than that?--, a Sinatra song), but I hadn't listened to straight through for years and years--and never "live". It was written at the end of a long (we're talking years) period of depression and writer's block in 1901. Hypnotherapy helped Rachmaninoff get his groove back, and this was the result. I'm a believer!
So, get a cd of it, if you don't have one, yet, and, at the end of a hectic day, sometime, close your eyes and let it wash over you. I think you'll find it's quite, well, hypnotic.
So, we had a wonderful evening. Tom wasn't one bit squirmy. We like the atmosphere. Not stuffy. How many classical concerts have you attended in your flip-flops?
