1. Debbie and I piled into the Camry early this afternoon and zoomed to the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox to attend today's performance by the Spokane Symphony. We arrived in plenty of time to park, stroll to 1st and Monroe and enter the northside door, pick up our tickets at will call, and find a seat close to the stage for the pre-concert lecture.
Today's soloist was the Spokane Symphony's concertmaster, Mateusz Wolski. He and Conductor James Lowe opened the lecture with Lowe interviewing Wolski about what he enjoys about Edouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole, Op 21 the concerto that would feature him. Wolski explained how Lalo's piece veers between different emotional poles and how it is infused with the energy Spain and the vitality of its culture.
The program also featured Fannie Mendelssohn-Hensel's only published orchestral composition, Overture in C Major and James Lowe lamented how prevailing ideas about women sabotaged Mendelssohn-Hensel's career as a composer. He helped us see how the overture moves from tentative and searching to exuberant and confident by the end. This overture is not often performed and I was very happy to get to hear it today.
Fannie Mendelssohn-Hensel's younger brother, the wildly famous Felix Mendelssohn, had his masterpiece, Symphony No 3 in A Major, the "Italian", end the program. James Lowe explained how each movement of this symphony represents a different Italian city (Venice, Rome, Florence, and Naples) and a different facet of Italian identity (boundless energy, spirituality, cultural refinement, gritty and chaotic energy).
2. Debbie and I always give anything like a concert, play, movie, art gallery, or museum that we experience together time to sink in, time to take hold in us before we talk about it.
Once we arrived home, we talked. We discovered that both of us loved hearing this music played live and that we both were as absorbed by watching the musicians, using our eyes and our ears together to figure out where certain sounds were coming from, and were, in some ways, as fascinated by musicians who did very little during some pieces, but then were called into action (after a long wait) whether they played a triangle, a snare drum, or a piccolo.
Until today, I never knew Debbie watched orchestral concerts as well as listened to them and I had a blast going back and forth with Debbie, telling each other our visual observations and what we found pleasing to our ears, too.
3. Not long after returning to the Camry, we made an agreement. From now on, for the most part, Debbie will be the travel planner of our marriage and I will be in charge of cultural outings.
Both of us are stoked to carry out the missions of our ministries.
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