Friday was spent working furiously to complete PR stuff for the announcement of the 0708 season, which is why I am putting up this special Saturday edition. And when I say furiously, I mean furiously. I kept my door shut so my colleagues wouldn't be disturbed by my occasional outbursts of exasperated sailor talk. It's especially upsetting to be so totally wired and focused into my required labors that I can't really listen to SLSO Principal Second Violin Alison Harney playing the final rehearsal of the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5. Not being able to listen to this great music when it is in its work-in-progress stage is one of the unpleasant aspects of my job.
However, as I drop more hints about the upcoming new season (I believe the Post-Dispatch has a feature article Sunday) I will tell you about a meeting I had with colleagues from the Marketing department and the new Artistic VP, Peter Czornyj.
We got into a discussion of selecting certain programs as Date Nights, music conducive to romantic evenings. Peter, who was most recently with the Cleveland Orchestra, said that Friday night was date night in that city. And St. Louis, he asked?
We were a bit flummoxed, as myself and my colleagues have been happily married and have been happily not dating for some time. Saturday?
Maybe. Then we got into picking concerts, and, I don't even remember what composition it was -- and I couldn't tell you on new-season-announcement eve -- but I said that the piece was a good selection because it was entirely "neckable."
Which reminds me of a story I may have told before, so skip this section if you've heard it already: One night there was a program that included a Chopin piano concert (either #s 1 or 2) and Ein Heldenleben. William Wolfram played the Chopin and Carlos Kalmar conducted. A young couple (teenagers, I think) sat a few rows below my wife and I on the upstairs level. During the Chopin, the young woman was all over her boyfriend. I must say, I had some sympathy for him, as he attempted to maintain an appropriate concertgoer demeanor througout the siege. Then came intermission, and then came the Strauss. And the transformation was amazing: the two love birds sat mesmerized by the music, holding hands.
I know some people might have felt the youngsters were distracting during the Chopin, but not me. If you can't neck during Chopin, when can you? And notice when the music shifted, so did their attentions. The music made them do it.
So perhaps now you know what I mean by "neckable."
I would not put tonight's Mozart violin concerto in that category -- it goes in the absolutely compelling and mesmerizing musical category, especially as Alison plays it. You can read an interview I did with Alison about her approach to the piece in this month's Playbill. We spent an hour talking about Mozart over Nepalese food on a weekday afternoon.
And spending an hour talking about Mozart with Alison Harney is one of the great perks of my job.
