Symphony At The Bug-Eyes

Take a look at this:

It’s called the Esplanade, the official Singapore answer to the Sydney Opera House in that it’s supposed to be the national center for the performance of the arts. Every time I look at it, I think that these are the compound eyes of some huge mecha-dragonfly sleeping just below the surface of the water, and so I’ve always thought of the place as simply the Bug-Eyes. One nice thing about the place that morons will strongly resent is that the concert halls are actually shielded to cellular phone signals so even if you were one of those jerks that insists on talking on the phone during a performance, no one can call you and you can’t call out. Call it a denial of civil liberties, I simply call it finally clamping down on stupidity.

Tonight was concert night. We checked out a French pianist who, it seemed, came out for a single performance of Ravel, and then promptly left after one encore performance. In my estimation, that’s not too bad; get paid thousands of dollars for 30 minutes work. Not too shabby at all.

Overall, while I enjoyed the performance, I actually preferred the music without the pianist, which was Wagner and Schumann. Maybe it’s just an inherent prejudice, but I kind of like German symphonics more than French. Even when it’s trying its damndest to be upbeat and happy, as in Wagner’s Sigfried’s Idyll, there’s still a dark, militant undercurrent that makes you feel happy but still want to subjugate something. Only the Germans, man.

I also developed a new sympathy of the brass section. It was probably just the night’s selection, but I noticed the guys who played the trumpet in one piece blew his horn exactly once. But then you can say the same for the harp, trombone or any of the other instruments that aren’t violins or cellos. There’s always been a heavy prejudice towards the strings, but then they sound so damn evocative it’s kind of hard not to abuse them.