Dies mal hab's geschafft
Last night I cashed in the Karma I earned in Munich when I just missed getting a ticket to the rehearsal of the Munich Philharmonic in the form of a ticket to a Vienna Philharmonic concert in Köln. With my experience in Munich still fresh my recollection, I arrived at the concert hall one hour before the tickets went on sale to find a line, but not so long of a line that my hopes were dashed. So I stood there, read a book, and prayed it wouldn't start to rain. I ended up with one of the last five standing places. In Europe it's actually fairly common for concert halls to offer standing places. Basically I ended up standing behind the last row of chairs way in the back. Actually the worst part being so far back. The three hours of standing on my feet I could handle.
On the program were Beethoven's 6th symphony (the one from Fantasia) and Schumann's 1st Symphony, both good works. I was particularly excited to hear Beethoven's 6th since I know it so well. As expected the symphony orchestra was amazing. The musicians played flawlessly and each section was absolutely clean. The violin section didn't sound like 12 violinists playing together, but rather the players were so perfectly in sync with each other that it sounded like one person playing 12 violins. And each section was like that. Including the basses. The bass section consisted of 8 men, all of whom played German bow. There's nothing quite like hearing 8 basses pizzicato perfectly together. (It sounds simple. But believe me, getting a bass section to pluck simultaniously is a challenge.) I was not as impressed with the wind sections, but the french horns and bassoons were very good. (For the benefit of my sisters.)
What the group had in terms of technical brillence, it lacked somewhat in gusto and musicality. At the beginning of the concert, I had the feeling that they holding back and was waiting for them to let it out so to speak. As the concert progressed the music began to have a bit more umph in it. I may have a different perspective if I'd had better seats. Way in the back I never really felt inundated in sound. Next year I'll have to go to a New York Symphony concert and see how it compares.
Otherwise work is about to drive me absolutely crazy. Now that I've figured out why my FFT's looked like Quatsch, the next step is to be able to reliably read out the FFT's from the spectrometer. You might be asking yourself why I didn't have this solved before hand, and I really don't have a good answer for you. But I really don't have a good answer for anything that has to do with this thing. Why didn't I just stick with observational astronomy?
On a happier note the weather has now been "warm" for a week. I hope to be able to make another trip to the Siebengebirge this weekend for a bit more wandering.
All for now. Have a good weekend everyone!
On the program were Beethoven's 6th symphony (the one from Fantasia) and Schumann's 1st Symphony, both good works. I was particularly excited to hear Beethoven's 6th since I know it so well. As expected the symphony orchestra was amazing. The musicians played flawlessly and each section was absolutely clean. The violin section didn't sound like 12 violinists playing together, but rather the players were so perfectly in sync with each other that it sounded like one person playing 12 violins. And each section was like that. Including the basses. The bass section consisted of 8 men, all of whom played German bow. There's nothing quite like hearing 8 basses pizzicato perfectly together. (It sounds simple. But believe me, getting a bass section to pluck simultaniously is a challenge.) I was not as impressed with the wind sections, but the french horns and bassoons were very good. (For the benefit of my sisters.)
What the group had in terms of technical brillence, it lacked somewhat in gusto and musicality. At the beginning of the concert, I had the feeling that they holding back and was waiting for them to let it out so to speak. As the concert progressed the music began to have a bit more umph in it. I may have a different perspective if I'd had better seats. Way in the back I never really felt inundated in sound. Next year I'll have to go to a New York Symphony concert and see how it compares.
Otherwise work is about to drive me absolutely crazy. Now that I've figured out why my FFT's looked like Quatsch, the next step is to be able to reliably read out the FFT's from the spectrometer. You might be asking yourself why I didn't have this solved before hand, and I really don't have a good answer for you. But I really don't have a good answer for anything that has to do with this thing. Why didn't I just stick with observational astronomy?
On a happier note the weather has now been "warm" for a week. I hope to be able to make another trip to the Siebengebirge this weekend for a bit more wandering.
All for now. Have a good weekend everyone!
posted by laura s at 7:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home