Long but great day yesterday

The day began early on Saturday with my getting ready to drive around the marathon route to get to the site of the third day of the workshop.  I left earlier than usual but got there a little later than usual.  I hadn't known that there were construction areas that complicated the alternate route, slowing down traffic as everyone who was trying to go around had to get into one narrow lane.

The workshop ended well with my feeling sorry that it was over.  I drove home without incident--the runners were all nursing sore muscles and feet, I suppose--and got here in time to make dinner and get ready for the concert by the Utah Symphony.  I was pretty tired and wasn't sure I would be able to stay awake--sitting quietly has its hazards!

I ought not to have been concerned.  What a good program it was.  Gerard Schwartz stood in for Roberto Minezuk who was obliged to cancel at almost the last moment.  The cancellation altered the program a little with the substitution of the Overture to the Flying Dutchman in place of Korngold's Much Ado about Nothing suite.  The Wagner overture was rousing and well-played.  It was followed by Mozart's Concerto No. 3 in G Major for Violin played by Karen Gomyo.  She is a tiny young woman whose slightness does not hint at what she can do.  Her playing was elegant, graceful and delicate-sounding.  The very sweet tone of the Stradivarus she plays was just right for this concerto.  Meanwhile the orchestra playing was transparent and light.  It was just perfect.

After the intermission the stage filled completely with musicians for Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra.  I love Strauss for exactly the opposite reasons I love Mozart.  That seems contradictory I suppose, but I love the richness of the Strauss sound.  If it were cloth, it would be richly colored and heavily textured, something I would want to wrap myself in.  Being there last night surrounded by the sound of the orchestra in this detailed and passionate piece was almost a physical experience.  I ate it up.

Surprisingly--to me, at least--the concert ended with Johan Strauss, Jr. (no relation that I know) On the Beautiful Blue Danube.  I give Schwartz full credit for not making it into the mawkish, over-sentimental music it can be in the wrong hands. 

So it was an evening of musical contrasts, all very tuneful and all appealing in different ways and I loved it.  We are lucky to have the chance to attend live performances of such a good orchestra.  I scrimp on other things to be able to buy season tickets.

Alas, the bag piper was back.  If his instrument were not so penetrating and impossible to ignore it wouldn't intrude as much on the mood.

Today I repaired some of the things I had taken to the workshop as examples and made a couple of new ones to replace those for which a repair wasn't possible.  Besides laundry, correspondence, bill paying and making up to Bob and Lola for being gone, I haven't done much today.  Power was out for part of the early evening so I grilled most of my dinner while I waited for it to be restored. (Now, obviously, it's back.)

Tomorrow I can weave again!