Which Is How We Feel Most of the Time Now
I celebrated the Solstice by heading to the Turkish section of Berlin to watch Turkey's national football team eek out a very surprising win against Croatia. It wasn't the best game ever (I'm still not particularly good at watching soccer, though), but it was fun to watch it in the context of national fans. I'm glad they won - it made the wandering around in the celebratory atmosphere that much more exciting. Next week, however, I think I will pass on heading to the same neighborhood to watch the German team play the Turkish team. Whoever wins, there seems to be a very high probability for some level of mayhem.
I'm already entering the home stretch of my stay here in Berlin - less than a week to go. Time flies. I'm experiencing mostly a sense of preemptive homesickness for the Berlin-once-I've-left, tinged with a healthy dosage of "I can't believe I live in Miami, and have to go back there." Concerts are just about over. Maybe one more, next week - the Staatskapelle is playing Janacek's Sinfonietta and something else, which is probably worth hearing, and it's the night of the aforementioned Germany-Turkey Euromeisterschaft Semi-Final game, so I reckon there'll be plenty of tickets available. A pretty good run of concerts, though, this summer, especially since my concert-going is painfully sparse during the "school" year.
One last thought, in terms of the Philharmoniker (their performance of the 1st act of Siegfried with Rattle was phenomenal - the music ain't great, but they played the shit out of it, again demonstrating their inhuman precision - all those strings whirling around, completely together (and the horns too, of course, continuing to never miss notes (when I was in London, at this horn-players party, I had a hiarious short conversation with a young horn player there about the audition one of the Berliner Phil's current principal hornist, Radek Baborak - and I'm not sure that this will translate to the normal-humans world, but it was really really funny so here it goes: the young gentleman with whom I was speaking was relating this to me in a very excited, accented (somewhere between South African and British) language: "So there he was, on the stage. First they asked for Heldenleben. He played it down. Perfect. Then they asked for Alpensinfonie. Same thing. Played it perfectly. Sinfonia Domestica. Same thing. 25 excerpts later, he still hadn't missed a note. Insane. And they stopped the audition right there, gave him the job. Sent everyone else home. Incredible." I will be lauging about this for a long time, I think. Sometimes it's okay to be an ex-.)):
hearing the LSO last weekend, which is, as already mentioned, also a world-class orchestra, I was able to (re)contextualize the role that precision plays in people's perceptions of a given orchestra. It definitely is the case that the Berliner Phil played together much more tightly than the LSO did (and I realize I'm comparing not many concerts here) - it was very noticable, having been hearing just Berliner orchestras for the last two months, the difference that exists in sound between the two groups. And I reckon it'd be possible for someone used to the sound of a band like the LSO to be put off by the BP, especially given the ease with which Germans, in general, are caricaturable, but I remain adamantly convinced that the precision of the BPhil is one of warmth and expressivity, and in no way overly-perfect.
I'm already entering the home stretch of my stay here in Berlin - less than a week to go. Time flies. I'm experiencing mostly a sense of preemptive homesickness for the Berlin-once-I've-left, tinged with a healthy dosage of "I can't believe I live in Miami, and have to go back there." Concerts are just about over. Maybe one more, next week - the Staatskapelle is playing Janacek's Sinfonietta and something else, which is probably worth hearing, and it's the night of the aforementioned Germany-Turkey Euromeisterschaft Semi-Final game, so I reckon there'll be plenty of tickets available. A pretty good run of concerts, though, this summer, especially since my concert-going is painfully sparse during the "school" year.
One last thought, in terms of the Philharmoniker (their performance of the 1st act of Siegfried with Rattle was phenomenal - the music ain't great, but they played the shit out of it, again demonstrating their inhuman precision - all those strings whirling around, completely together (and the horns too, of course, continuing to never miss notes (when I was in London, at this horn-players party, I had a hiarious short conversation with a young horn player there about the audition one of the Berliner Phil's current principal hornist, Radek Baborak - and I'm not sure that this will translate to the normal-humans world, but it was really really funny so here it goes: the young gentleman with whom I was speaking was relating this to me in a very excited, accented (somewhere between South African and British) language: "So there he was, on the stage. First they asked for Heldenleben. He played it down. Perfect. Then they asked for Alpensinfonie. Same thing. Played it perfectly. Sinfonia Domestica. Same thing. 25 excerpts later, he still hadn't missed a note. Insane. And they stopped the audition right there, gave him the job. Sent everyone else home. Incredible." I will be lauging about this for a long time, I think. Sometimes it's okay to be an ex-.)):
hearing the LSO last weekend, which is, as already mentioned, also a world-class orchestra, I was able to (re)contextualize the role that precision plays in people's perceptions of a given orchestra. It definitely is the case that the Berliner Phil played together much more tightly than the LSO did (and I realize I'm comparing not many concerts here) - it was very noticable, having been hearing just Berliner orchestras for the last two months, the difference that exists in sound between the two groups. And I reckon it'd be possible for someone used to the sound of a band like the LSO to be put off by the BP, especially given the ease with which Germans, in general, are caricaturable, but I remain adamantly convinced that the precision of the BPhil is one of warmth and expressivity, and in no way overly-perfect.
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