Last night Nathan took me to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra in their first program of the season. (We went to the second night rather than opening night, because we were able to get much better seats for less money!) This was sort of our celebration of "yay, we've been having fun being best friends for a whole year now!" It was a really grand evening. They played the Le Corsaire Overture by Berlioz, Jeux by Debussy, Le Boeuf sur le toit by Milhaud, and the second half consisted of... Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3, the "Organ" Symphony! I had such a good time. I absolutely loved the program. The Berlioz was really, really cool, and the Debussy was enjoyable as well. The Milhaud was really fun; it was full of quirkiness. Of course, the Saint-Saens was what we really went to hear, and it definitely met and exceeded my expectations. The BSO has spent the past two years renovating their organ, and Simon Preston came to play the concert. I thought it was grand and glorious - just what Saint-Saens ought to be. The last movement made me cry, which reminded me of a passage I recently read in an essay by my teacher, called The Many Faces of Musical Talent:
"One of my earliest teachers used to put it very beautifully. "If I pay my five dollars for a concert, I will sit down in my seat and appreciate many things about an artist and admire what he can do. Or I may disapprove very much of his sense of style, find his musical taste offensive, and question his breeding. But if just once I do this...," and at this point he would brush away an imaginary tear from his eye, "then I know that I have gotten my money's worth."
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