Almost any concert at the New World Symphony is a worthwhile experience.  This last one, yesterday, was even more so because it was free. The noteworthy thing about the NWS is that this “school” is graduate training for selected young musicians who give performances as part of their practice sessions.  Before their scheduled performances for which fees are charged to the public, some “free” tickets for rehearsals are available.  We were some of the lucky ones who got in on general admission and could choose our seats so as to be near the exit which led out to where our car was parked.  The theater is a great one, holding some three hundred plus guests in the audience so you can hear and see perfectly well from anywhere in the auditorium.

I enjoy going to concerts. Just the idea of all those instruments and the musicians working to reproduce the genius of a composer makes the experience something to be desired. I find that my enjoyment has been tempered by my hearing loss so I am not always sure if what I hear is what the composer, conductor and musicians meant me to hear.

This particular concert was the first of the season so the aggregation was unseasoned. Despite this and a very murky and unsatisfying Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss, the audience loved every bit of it.  Carol and I were not particularly happy with this metamorphosis. My understanding of the organic process is that cocoons containing worms that were laid as eggs by butterflies or moths and change into those flying creatures.  That should be a happy process to witness such fantastic life unfold from those cocoons. Strauss’s music was heavy and did not contain a resolution.  This may have been his intention since he was inspired by funeral march in the Eroica Symphony by Beethoven.

The most interesting thing about this Strauss piece was that it was “A Study for 23 Solo Strings”.  Their musicians standing in front of music stands played all three forms of violins.  The cellos and the bases were seated.  I found it peculiar since they, the musicians, were not all the same size and it was not quite the same as when they all were seated and seemed to be more aligned.  Of course this was a piece where all the strings played their own solos so there was the not the grand picture of all the bows sweeping up and down in unison.

Carol wanted me to mention the extraordinary good first selection, a Mozart “Divertimento” and the final piece that was especially fine. This was “Serenade in C Major for Strings, Op. 48.  It was rousing and enjoyed by all in the audience, young and old alike.

In any event, we are concert people.  We also enjoy looking at the many interesting looking people who dress up in all kinds of apparel and take their seats all around us.  We must look as peculiar as they do to us.