Last night we had a great date night. We went to Bambara for a delightful meal, since the city is having Dine-O-Round right now, and you can try expensive restaurants for less. For $28 each, we got a 3 course meal - salad, entree, and dessert. Loren had rabbit with wild mushrooms (! I could not even try it ! Too close to home w/our pet rabbit !) and he said it was amazing, and I had Morgan Valley lamb with polenta. Delicious. The dessert was pistachio cake, which was just OK, probably because it was not chocolate. All the same, the coffee and the wonderful adult conversation with my husband were sublime.
Then on to the symphony. For the season opener, they played 2 of our favorites: Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, and The Planets by Holst. It was so amazing to go, since we hadn't been in a while. I just love the living, breathing organism that is the orchestra. It delights me to hear and see the musicians working together to create such a breadth of sounds and timbres. The piano concerto was splendid, really - the soloist, Andre Watts, was having the time of his life with this old warhorse of a piece. His musicianship was impressive, and the variety of sounds he coaxed from the piano were marvelous. He got SO into it, though, that he was singing along quite loudly at times - we could hear him readily from our 9th row seats. I didn't mind too much, though, because he was clearly enjoying the music for all it was worth, and that was what I came to do as well. After the intermission, the orchestra tackled The Planets. Loren and I agreed that Mars is our favorite, and the orchestra really could not have played it better. The solid wall of sound that the brass produced was totally over the top, and we loved it. The other planets were extremely well-executed too, and listening to the large performing force with the unusual instrumentation (bass oboe, bass flute, contrabassoon, 6 horns, celeste, glockenspiel, et.) was a treat.
2 comments:
Hi Tammy, I'm happy to find your blog again. And I'm so happy for you that you had such a wonderful date night. I dragged Erik to the opera (La Traviata) once when we still lived in San Diego. It was fantastic, but we both dozed off. That was the last time we've been to a cultural event. I used to love the symphony too. (Sigh) Our last date was a Corvette club outing. The one before that involved the back-hoe.
Our dates usually include a race if I am planning it or a quilt show if Takako is planning it -- got to try the culture stuff -- sounds great -- at the race in Japan maybe we will try the Kabuki theatre -- better be before the race -- or I'll be nodding off too
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