As luck would have it, we had the best seats in the house, in the centre and a little back from the start of the raking seats, with our knees about level with the stage. This gave us a fine view of the orchestra, rather tightly packed under the arch of the big hall stage, one effect of which was to give the concert a theatrical flavour, with the orchestra getting a rather villagey flavour. One was very conscious of the parts of the orchestra, with a long haired violinist on the far left and a small clump of double bassists on the far right. Important people like the second principal violin and the conductor in the middle, on the village green, as it were. In the intervals, one wondered about orchestra life. What was it like being a middle aged, rank and file second violin? Were they all on zero hours contracts, like shelf stackers at supermarkets? Given that it seemed unlikely that the Halls have their own Steinway, who was responsible for getting it there? Did it come with a tuner in its box?
As seems to be the way at the Halls, the orchestra had to fend for itself in the interval, with some of them getting their stuff from the bar along with the rest of us. But at least this gave me the opportunity to button-hole the second principal violin, who did not seem too pleased to be bothered in this way and who did not know where the piano came from, except in the negative sense that it certainly did not come with the orchestra. No space in their wagon.
The pianist seemed very young, much younger than his 24 years. He sported white lights in the heels of his shoes (along with various glittering clothes sported by lady members of the crew), goes in for break dancing when he is not playing the piano and was the first pianist that I have seen using an electronic score, on what looked like an iPad. A gadget last thought about last May (see reference 2). I think this one was foot operated - although it won't be long before the sort of software needed to know where you are in the score and turn the pages for you is generally available. I guess it will be a bit like automatic gear boxes in racing cars: eventually the machine will do a better job than the driver, who will just have to swallow his pride and use the thing if he wants to win.
The conductor is, it seems the first assistant to Daniel Barenboim in Berlin, which led to wondering about what first assistants did. Is it a bit like other master craftsmen who leave the routine stuff to their apprentices? So Hindoyan gets told off to rehearse the brass section on the third movement while the master takes a well earned break, or is off oiling the wheels of corporate sponsorship?
It made an interesting change, going to an orchestral concert for once in a while, but I found the first two pieces a bit formless, despite the rich sound, the virtuosity and the odd jewels of sound which seemed to pop out of the fuller, massed strings dominated, orchestral sound from time to time. Beethoven much better, although he did have the advantage of my having done a bit of revision.
PS 1: I learn from YouTube this morning that the Grieg piece was originally written for the piano. Perhaps, given that we had both piano and pianist, it would have been interesting to have had it played twice, once in each mode.
PS 2: and I learn from the Guardian later this morning that they are tour - see illustration. Do they get to stay in theatrical digs or is their bus pounding up and down the road to London? Quite an expense for them either way.
Reference 1: http://jipianist.com/Ji_Website/Welcome.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/things-swedish.html.
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