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weekend update
have got some work done. yay. have spent a bit of time Thinking about things -- also yay. feeling kind of grad-student-blues-y -- not depressed and lonely, but a little whelmed by my work, which i suppose is a good thing when you really think about it; if the questions were easy to answer, they wouldn't be a good subject for original research.
went last night to hear the university orchestra play berlioz' symphonie fantastique and tchaikovsky's rococo variations. the symphony was excellent -- i'd never heard it before, but the program notes included berlioz' own description of what he was going for in each movement, and besides there's something i've always found engaging in watching an orchestra play. i love watching the violinists' bows all moving together, and looking at different sections when different instruments are prominent. last night i was up in the balcony and it was fun to watch the front desk second violins rocking back and forth almost exactly in opposition to the front desk violas, as though the four of them were two pedals on a bicycle.
and the tchaikovsky was fabulous. the cellist was a young guy who was really neat to watch -- he was very expressive and soloist-like, but also i could see him communicating visually with both the concertmaster and the conductor; the three of them worked so well together to keep the piece all moving coherently. [happy skilled-musician-observing wibble] and! when the piece ended, a couple of kids from the music society came to give the soloist presents -- a wrapped box of who knows what, and a large bouquet, and the kid still had his cello and his bow, which was obviously going to make things difficult. but he took the flowers and immediately turned around and handed them to the principal cellist in the orchestra, which was incredibly sweet and incredibly smooth and graceful, and increased the applause by about two notches of volume. (i'm told by a friend who was on the other side of the audience that the principal cellist blushed fiercely. aww.)
went last night to hear the university orchestra play berlioz' symphonie fantastique and tchaikovsky's rococo variations. the symphony was excellent -- i'd never heard it before, but the program notes included berlioz' own description of what he was going for in each movement, and besides there's something i've always found engaging in watching an orchestra play. i love watching the violinists' bows all moving together, and looking at different sections when different instruments are prominent. last night i was up in the balcony and it was fun to watch the front desk second violins rocking back and forth almost exactly in opposition to the front desk violas, as though the four of them were two pedals on a bicycle.
and the tchaikovsky was fabulous. the cellist was a young guy who was really neat to watch -- he was very expressive and soloist-like, but also i could see him communicating visually with both the concertmaster and the conductor; the three of them worked so well together to keep the piece all moving coherently. [happy skilled-musician-observing wibble] and! when the piece ended, a couple of kids from the music society came to give the soloist presents -- a wrapped box of who knows what, and a large bouquet, and the kid still had his cello and his bow, which was obviously going to make things difficult. but he took the flowers and immediately turned around and handed them to the principal cellist in the orchestra, which was incredibly sweet and incredibly smooth and graceful, and increased the applause by about two notches of volume. (i'm told by a friend who was on the other side of the audience that the principal cellist blushed fiercely. aww.)
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* grad-student-blues solidarity *