Out with Al

 On Wednesday I went with Al who was playing in a quartet at a library session on all things Shakespeare.

  Al is playing ( with Camerata) at the opening of Harris Farm Markets at West End today, and I was given a ticket to a QSO concert at QPAC at South Bank, so we went to the city together.

First we went to Al’s venue where the flower shop blew my mind - the display of so many colourful flowers so artistically arranged.  West End has changed so much I hardly recognised anything.  

Then I left Al to prepare for her concert, and walked to my venue (and I didn't get lost). 

I’m in my seat now, waiting for my concert to begin- Liszt's Piano Concerto No.1 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.6 in B minor (Pathétique)... 

... I'm home now. The music was all so beautiful. I was entranced with the way the pianist could make those difficult Liszt passages flow so fast, so floaty, yet so articulate. And, so magically inspired. Yes, I really believe that to make music move people, (to bring me to tears, for example), the musician does have something inexplicable. Is it spiritual? There are no words to explain this gift, and dare I say, this "God-given" gift. Sometimes, I can feel it in my own music making, when I am lost in the music. Sometimes I have heard it in the children I have taught. And at the risk of a bit of bias, I have heard it in my own children and grandchildren. It is more than notes, and even more than what we call expression ( the dynamics or louds, softs etc).  And sometimes, no matter how hard a person tries, they just don't "get it". 

Lucky for me and all the other people in the audience today, the pianist, Konstantin Shamray, QSO and the conductor definitely "got it". 

P.S. I was gifted the very good seat at today's concert - a friend of a friend who couldn't attend. Thank you Susan and Penny.