Music

Mary Ellen and I went down to the Kennedy Center on Friday (the 5th) to hear Slatkin and the NSO do Beethoven's 9th. Before Beethoven, however, we had to sit through a contemporary piece--Explosion of the Sacred Heart or something. The new piece was poor, but that's what I would have expected. Beethoven, however, was also poor, which is not at all what I would have expected. The second movement was virtually unrecognizable, and the third was so slow and maudlin that it was all I could do to keep myself from running screaming from the hall. Overall, the entire symphony was . . . boring. Can you believe it? The 9th symphony, boring! (Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised. Half a dozen years ago at Wolf Trap, we heard Slatkin and the NSO do the same thing to another impossible-to-make-boring piece, Mendelsohnn's Italian Symphony.)

The best things about Friday afternoon outing?

• My companion
• No traffic
  
• A parking spot on the street (with no meter) only three blocks from the auditorium
• (Since we were early) a cold beer on the KC terrace looking up the river toward G-town.

Sunday afternoon I went off by myself to the McLean Community Center to hear five members of the NSO play some chamber music. Again, a contemporary piece (by someone named Kevin Puts) and an old warhorse (by someone named Schubert--the Trout Quintet.) Both pieces were FABULOUS! I'm sure my enjoyment was increased by the fact that I was sitting in the front row, just about 8 feet from the cellist, but I'm also sure I would have loved the performance if I'd been in the back row of the balcony. The performance was all the more enjoyable because on Friday I had found myself wondering whether I would ever hear a new piece of music that I liked. Indeed, I was beginning to wonder if I had lost my taste for music completely. (Beethoven's 9th, for God's sake! Boring!) Sunday showed me that some music, even some contemporary music, can still be thrilling.