My Weakest Link

At the interval of BBC Prom47 yesterday, YS and I were busy studying the brochures featuring up coming concerts at RAH. We have been attending quite a few concerts this year as we wanted to make the most of our final year in London. There were three concerts that caught our eyes, one is particularly expansive as it features John Barry and the 10 Tenors. We were under the impression that we had been splurging quite uncontrollably on concerts and since we had some time at the interval, I took out my organizer and started listing out the concerts I’ve attended for this year and did some quick accounting for my expenditures.

Here goes:

Classic FM Live 24.00 pounds
Mama Mia! 32.50
Cyrano de Bergerac 8.00 (standing for Placido Domingo)
Marriage of Figaro (ROH) Free (Live screening at Trafalgar Sq)
Filmharmonic 15.00
Showboat 32.50
Sleeping Beauty (ROH) Free (BD gift from YS)
LSO+Sarah Chang Free (BD gift from LP)
BBC Proms 47,61,64,69 62.00

= 174.00 GBP [201 pounds if I include the gifts]

We always got the most value for money seats, and very often the cheapest ones for these shows with blocked view. It’s incredible how much it all adds up to in just 8 months. Scary. Brrrrr. But after the initial shock I am still pretty tempted to go for the following shows (getting cheapest seats of course) so lets see how much damage it MIGHT do to my pocket. (Disclaimer: These are show that survived the painful elimination, and I only looked at one venue)

15th Sept RPO 60th Anniv.Gala 10.00
21st Sept Classic FM Live 12.00
23rd Sept Peter and the Wolf 10.00
28th Sept John Barry & 10 Tenors 28.50
7th Oct Four Seasons by candlelight 11.50
12th Nov Best of Broadway 8.50
17th Nov Martha Argerich & Dutoit play Ravel 5.00
27th Nov Nutcracker (St.Petersburg Ballet) 22.50

That’s an additional 108GBP, bringing my potential concert expenses for 2006 to

282GBP = 846 SGD

Wow. Okay. The damage is going to be quite substantial I guess. I’d better do some further elimination.

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On a lighter note, YS and I finally got our long-standing query answered yesterday.

IS LSO or RPO better??

Previously we’ve always heard RPO at Royal Albert Hall and the LSO at Barbican. We were more impressed by the LSO but thought that their performance might be assisted by the superior acoustic engineering of the venue.

Last night’s Prom was meant to give the two orchestras a fair evaluation. Since we are very familiar with the acoustics of RAH and always sat in the rear circle, in the same area (cheapest, obviously), the comparison should be pretty fair by all accounts.

Not surprisingly, we came to the same conclusion independently. Before the first piece by Shostakovich was finished, YS turned around and we exchanged knowing smiles. It was very obvious to us that LSO was indeed the better orchestra. Their strings were beautiful and technically exquisite. Maybe because it’s a symphony orchestra, their wind section is smaller but and every musician played like a soloists in his/her own right. They have one of the best group of percussionists I’ve seen (not that I’ve seen many) but I’ve always found their performance mesmerizing, whether it was at barbican or at RAH.

It must not be an easy task playing for Valery Gergiev, the Russian conductor for the all Russian Prom last night. From the way he conducted, I could tell that he was very demanding of the sounds he could draw from each instrument and was extremely sensitive to the atmosphere that the music creates. Whenever he pauses between the movements, the whole hall would pause with him. Whenever he punches the air and pushes the orchestra to pour in more emotions, more intensity into the music, the orchestra pushes its boundaries of mastery and delivered for him.

Towards the end of the performance, the atmosphere was simply electric. Valery Gergiev conducted the entire Tchikowsky Symphony No. 6 in B minor scoreless, and when he finished, none of the musicians on stage moved a hair, bows in mid-air, lips on mouthpieces, the stage froze with him and so did the audience. I cannot remember another moment where some 6000 people in the audience would hold their breaths collectively, staring at the tensed profile of the conductor, and have every sensory node soaking in the residual musical atoms floating through the air. The power that he held over the audience in that final 30 seconds had to be experienced to be believed. And because of him, I finally believed that some music could be breathed in.