Tonight we went to the symphony - i had high hopes. Peter Maxwell Davies conducting, Garrick Ohlsson on piano.

The first piece, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat major K.449, i found very ...nice. Not engaging, very background. I'm not too fond of string-heavy pieces; i found myself drifting to it, reading my book, until the Ohlsson started to play. Then i'd pay some attention, he'd stop, and i'd go back to my story. Nice, but nothing earth-shattering.

The second piece, on the other hand, was fantastic. Ravel's Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand. It was commissioned for the Wittgenstein who lost his right arm in the 1914 war on the Russian front. My book lay forgotten in my lap - i leaned forward, watching the musicians the whole time. Lively, enchanting, robust, i want to listen again, several times over. The piece started with a contrabassoon solo, futher endearing me to this not-often-heard instrument. The program notes do a much better job of explaining the piece than i can (such a bad musicgeek!) - but i do know i was captivated throughout.

The last piece, the US premeire of Davies' Antarctic Symphony, fell disappointingly flat. I was glad our seats are in side terrace, above the percussionists, because the saving grace was found (for me, at least) in listening to all the odd drums and toys they had laid out. (Five players with xylophone, glockenspiel, marimba, crotales, tubular bells, bell-tree, very small high wood-block, Chinese cympbals, clashed cymbals, four suspended cymbals (very small, small, medium, and large) nipple gong, tam-tam (with plastic soap-dish), tuned brandy glasses, two small pebbles, football rattle, biscuit tin (filled with broken glass), three lengths of builder's scaffolding, Japanese temple gong, and two cymbals.) Unfortunately, the piece didn't hang together at all - i couldn't follow it & wasn't interested in doing so. It seemed like there was never more than 10 seconds at a time that seemed to work together - but neither was it interestingly clashing. I always have high hopes when i see a composer conducting his own works, and i like seeing premieres. I spent most of this piece composing this article, and thinking about whether Forrest is right, and i can't handle contemporary composers. Unfortunately, i just think this piece didn't work for me at all. From the applause? It didn't work for most of the rest of the audience, either. Poor PMD. That has to be rough.

The other small notes:
--Burnout velvet tops seem to be all the rage for female symphony players this year.
--We ate dinner at Paul K, on Gough. Quite good; highly recommended. Skip one of the apps and get the flatbread with pomegranite walnut dip. We couldn't find room for dessert.
--Our waiter was perfect for us; the waiter at the table next door cracked us up, but would have driven us crazy.