Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
The Cleveland Orchestra

I can listen to a great symphony hundreds of times and still find something new the composer put in there. The Cleveland is one of the finest orchestras in the world, they have had some fine conductors, and enough CDs and LPs to last a person a lifetime.


And I get to LIVE here!!! Seen them dozens of times.

We have an outdoor venue here called Blossom Music Center. They do a few shows there in summer. (The one for July 4th is probably already sold out.) The pavilion holds 5700, and the lawn will hold 13.500 more. One summer long ago, had to be late 70s because Lorin left in 1982, they performed my favorite piece, Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. I had a complete score of that piece, so big it fit into a suitcase. So I went, with my blanket and suitcase. I grabbed a spot on the lawn and spread out my blanket, opened the suitcase and took out this accordion pleated looking pile of paper and got ready to follow along as they performed it. Of course people were looking at me like I was crazy. (But to be honest, they look at me like that no matter what the circumstances.) Lorin Maazel tapped is baton, and we were off. As they played, I followed along on the score, kind of keeping time with my head. There was a woman behind me and to my right watching. Eventually she moved down closer and was watching, so I started to follow along with my finger. (This score was printed out in such detail that it had 2 measures per page, 16 staves.) She sat through the entire performance. It runs what, 1 hr 15 minutes? Then they would break and come out and play shorter excerpts rather than a whole second symphony. But during that break she started asking me questions, like "You really know what all this stuff means, don't you?" And I just laughed and told her "Just follow the dots. When the dots go upward, so does the pitch." and shared with her one of the quotes attributed to Mozart. "The notes are all thee. You just have to put them in order."

That woman then made the comment how she always wanted to take piano lessons, to which I replied, TRYING not to sound snarky, "And why haven't you? The only one holding you back is you." I was like 28-29 then and she was probably 43-45. Then we chatted some and she asked about me and music and I told her I played in a band and all that yada yada. She knew of the band I was in then. About 8 months later she showed up at a gig. She said that the NEXT DAY she signed up for music lessons and had been playing for however long that gap was.

Sometimes people are their own obstacle.

But to topic, great choice, Notes. Now I am going to have to go see them again this year. Of course Mr. Maazel is gone now, but those are really world class players no matter who is driving the bus. This year they are 100 years old and they are BUSY at least for the first half.

Last edited by eddie1261; 02/14/18 06:58 AM.