Cross Cultural Notes

“Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.”

-Beethoven

“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”

-Einstein

 

 When people ask me where I live in Perth, I say the next block down from the Perth Concert Hall. It is a luxury to be able to walk to the symphony and only get a bit damp even in a down pour because it's so close (depending on the one street crossing traffic light). Every time I walk by to the train station or shops, a feel just a little more cultured.

I've now been to the opera house in Sydney, but Perth's Concert Hall is no shabby auditorium. Inside it is a beautiful space complete with fine dining and red carpet. 

Some day, I need to see someone use that organ!

The past two weeks the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. been putting on a Beethoven Festival, and Friday night I went to see the 6th, "Pastoral" and the 7th.

The whole symphony was great. I've spent most of my "music career" with amateur orchestras. After all, I am an amateur. Don't get me wrong, I use "amateur" with the highest regard and respect. I've always been impressed with them because A. almost everyone else is better than me and B. we only rehearse once a week and are all volunteers. Well, a professional symphony does sound a bit different. But it's the same music. The same symphonies, written hundreds of years ago, brought to life of the black and white sheet music by whoever is playing them. Hearing parts of the symphonies brought me back to the times when I have played them, with memorable melodies and conspicuous rests. As cheesy as it sounds, music really is the universal language (it even bridges the great Aussie-American divide). And even on the other side of the world, they still have the same orchestral quirks. 

The brass section still spends 75 percent of the time counting rests and trying to stay awake for their two entrances. Violins still break strings. There are still emotive flautists that if they moved just a little bit more would take out the whole woodwind section. And the oboe players still are fighting with their reeds.

Some of you may know that I play the oboe. The hautbois. Or as fellow double reeders have referred to it: hot boys and hobo. My oboe did not make it into my Perth-bound suitcase, which makes it a year since my lips have felt the tickle and buzz of the reed. That also makes it the longest period not playing since I was in 5th grade (which is a long time away from this oldie). I would never call myself an oboe player, or and oboist. I didn't major in music. I am terrible at music theory. And I never found myself practicing for two hours a day (or any day). In fact, I always thought the oboe sounded like a duck (Peter and the Wolf confirms this). Why didn't I play the guitar or violin? Way cooler (granted I do own both but am hopeless at progressing beyond a cats howl and three chords strum). You can't "jam" with an oboe. They aren't even in jazz bands. Not the coolest or sexiest instrument, plus over half the world doesn't know what an oboe (If you're one of them, listen to the beginning of the 7th).

Listening to Beethoven's 6th and 7th, I had an epiphany: "The oboe is beautiful". There is nothing like it, and I do actually like it." Maybe it was the skill and tone of Peter Facer, prinicpal oboist of WASO. Maybe it was the fact that I haven't played in ages. Maybe it was the glass of wine with dinner beforehand. Maybe things sound better down under. Who knows :) But I'll be excited to get my hands back on those silver keys, struggle to get a working reed, and squwak a little tune. 

WASO's 2015 calendar just arrived in the mail and they're playing Mozart's oboe concerto in C major next July. But I have a feeling I will be hearing from them before then.