Less is not always more...

We had our first snow last night.

Yes.  Snow.

The front that came through was so windy that it was as if the wind was wrapping its hands around my house trying to pry anything and everything away.  The rocking chair went nuts.  Pieces of my gutter landed in my neighbor's yard (the gutter that has been lying atop my rock river ever since demolition day).  The wine crate rattled around the airing porch until I rescued it.  My magnolia tree lost 2/3rd of its leaves in a very short time.  And, when I went to take Amos outside to tend his business, I literally was knocked to the ground by a gust of wind.  Thankfully, however, even though it sounded like all of the siding was being ripped away from the upper part of my house, it remains intact.

That was the most ferocious storm-that-wasn't-a-storm that I have ever experienced.

I have someone coming to stay for a few days, so I was cleaned the toilet in the basement (how is it that a toilet that is not being used can get dirty??????) and went to fetch orange juice and bananas, since that was the response back to the question: what can I have in the house that you would like to eat or drink.  I know Becky is longing for the orange juice.

That is the extent of my hospitality, because 1) I asked that the sheets be changed before departure and 2) I decided not to strip the bed to put on the heated mattress pad, but rather point out its location in case it is desired.  I am an exhausted, disabled person, after all.

I did turn the heat up tonight to start warming up the house.  Seriously, it is already 10 degrees warmer.  Really, I could have waited until tomorrow afternoon before cranking up the thermostat, but I told myself that I need to check to see how long it would take to warm up once I started using the heat.  That's the blessing of a guest:  no guilt about an un-miserly use of heat!!

I fetched the orange juice and bananas (using the money I got back from my shopping trip on Tuesday via Walmart's Savings Catcher app) on the way home from the symphony.  Yes, tonight was the third performance.  I wouldn't have known that if both my phone and computer had not reminded me.

Because it is a bit cold outside and my abdomen has been extra swollen for days, I had a difficult time finding something to wear that was both warm and painless and going-to-the-symphony attire.  I finally rediscovered this very long sweater thingy with which I wear a sweater shell that has a turtle neck and paired it with winter knit pants from my working days that are too big, but were hidden by the tunic length sweater thingy.  Once I put on the shell, I noticed there was a stain on the front of it.  Being the now very, very, very practical and pragmatic Myrtle, I simply wore the shell backwards and then tossed it into the laundry basket when I got back home.

Yes, I remembered to cut out the tag so that it was less obvious that I was wearing it backward.
No, I did not take a photo of myself.

Tonight's performance was dedicated to a longtime patron of the symphony who died a year ago tomorrow.  Because he was instrumental (pun intended) in getting full-time salaried endowments for each of the first chairs for the strings (I think), the first half of the performance was three (not the usual two) pieces, all of which were more of ensembles than orchestras.

The first of the three, Concerto Grosso in B-Flat Major, Opus 6, No. 5, by Charles Avison was interesting.  First, the conductor admitted that he was on his way to a football (English soccer) match when he saw a plaque marking some famous person and stopped to see who. It was Avison.  So, soccer matches can actually affect a symphony performance!

Second, it was like being at a dance.  Well, what I imagine being at a dance in eighteenth century England was like.  Engaging, relaxing, a break from everyday life.  Plus, reading the description of the piece in the notes made me realize just how poor my vocabulary development has become.  Do you know what "gigue" means???

Tonight really was a cello fest or fete or both.  The second of the three pieces was Antonio Vivaldi's  Concerto for Two Cellos in G Minor, RV 531.  I was unfamiliar with the music, but who in the world could not savor Vivaldi??  The cellists were two members of the orchestra and, to me, were rather impressive.  One of the parts seemed far more difficult than the other.  But, then again, perhaps playing subtly around a whirlwind part ever so seamlessly was the harder task.  By the end of this piece, if you are a cello fan, you probably thought you had died and gone to heaven.

Igor Stravinksy's Concerto in E-Flat, "Dumbarton Oaks" was the final piece in the first half.  My life would not have been poorer had I not heard it.  Whilst I did not wish to flee from the room, as I did with the other piece I disliked last spring (I think it was), I did struggle the whole three movements trying to find just one segment I found pleasant to my ears.  I cannot say that I did.  I do not care for this composition at all.

Then came the second half of the evening.
Johanne Brahms' Symphony No. 2 in D Major.
BLISS.

This piece is everything that I love about classical music. It was sweeping and stirring. It was peaceful.  It was so beautiful that I found myself weeping that God would gift the world with such a work of art.  It had no triangles or symbols or xylophones.

The audience was on its feet immediately.
I might possibly have whooped and hollered a bit myself.

The musicians who came to the last performance commented that the Fort Wayne Philharmonic is not a first tier orchestra.  Frankly, I took umbrage at the comment.  The orchestra certainly plays at a very high level.  And I would argue that the conductor is at the top of whatever a first tier would be.  Never have I seen a conductor who worked so hard to prepare an audience for what they were about to hear.  He raises the level of engagement before he even lifts his baton (or whatever that thing he waves around is).  Yes, mine is an un-tutored ear, but I know what poorly played music is like and I doubt the audience would shout so loud if they were listening to a second tier performance.

From the first note, to the last, the Brahms was incredibly satisfying.  Now, to be fair, I will admit that going from smaller ensembles to a full orchestra would, of course, change the experience.  But the entire room was filled with incredible music.  I was enveloped and carried away to a place I have yet to be at the symphony.  Not once, during the piece, did I start to marvel at how any one individual can envision how all those instruments will sound together and then write that music down.  I did not think about nature or dancing or war or any of the themes that have been so apparent, at times, in the concerts I have attended.  This piece was pure musical magic or magical music.  It drowned out all thought and demanded that there only be music.

And, for a time, that's all there was in the world.

You know, Avison was the organist and music director of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle Upon Tyne.  Vivaldi, known as the red priest, took his holy orders as a youth.  For all the bad things being blamed on the church these days, it would do the world good to be reminded that an awful lot of beautiful, incredible, un-matched music came from its members.

Other words I need to look up in the dictionary besides gigue:

• contrapuntal
• coda
• recapitulation
• delectation

Should I mention that the conductor also uses the word "whilst" in his writing??  A learned man to be sure.  Those British sure know how to proper schooling.  Forget about studying for the SATs.  Just watch British television.  Even reality shows.  You'll have a constant vocabulary lessons.  David Tennant first won my heart when he used the word "churlish" on the Graham Norton Show.

The one thing I loathed most about my career in marketing, communications, resource development, and knowledge management (life in the non-profit world requires the wearing of many hats) is how every single senior management person I ever worked with beat the drum on the need to dumb down written text and eliminate as many polysyllabic words as possible.  The mentality that folk should never have to use a dictionary whilst reading text is just plain wrong.  However will we learn, then?  I absolutely do believe that it is important to know the difference between a termagant and a curmudgeon.

I would be every single Taco Bell gift card that might come my way in the rest of my life that the program notes for the Fort Wayne Philharmonic contain at least 40% polysyllabic words, many of them four syllables!  And, for the record, if you look around during a performance, you won't have to move your eyes very far before finding someone reading that dense, rich, complicated, and long text of the program notes.

Less is not always more.