After sipping a white caffe mocha at Starbucks a pleasant surprise awaited me at the Royal Festival Hall in London. It was a gigantic theatre with its colourful arena that bewitched me at the first sight. It was a thrilling experience to barge into this really royal theatre. With less or no experience of concerts made me little bit apprehensive about the whole project of watching Philharmonia Orchestra in a jam packed theatre and a huge stage set for musicians.
A huge number of musicians took to stage to the brim. Everyone doing their adjustments before the time. A violinist arrived to take the centre stage who greeted the musicians and the audience. He was Andrew Haveron who is the concert master. He looked small in stature but his violin expertise showed his glory and fame. Then there arrived a man in black suit with a little stick in his hand to a huge applause. Apparently it came as huge surprise to me that people knew this famous conductor called Daniele Gatti, an Italian artist.
The first piece of music was from Wagner, prelude, Act I, "a good friday Music, Parsifal." This piece was taken from the artist Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) of Romantic age. The first piece of music was for about 30 minutes. Absolutely scintillating performance thrilled me and the fellow spectators. Knowledge about this kind of orchestra is very menial, so a special effort helped to grasp and cope with this mind blowing musical piece.
The second piece of music was from Mahler, Symphony No. 5 for about 70 minutes. This piece was absolutely incredible with its intricate and complex intonations. This was a big challenge to cope with long haul of music which looked the same as the previous. I should caution you that this was because of the lack of musical knowledge particularly orchestra.
A brief study made me to understand the intricacies this musical piece involved. Wagner's melodic musical arch rises, then slowly falls back to its starting point, intensely focused and glowing inwardly like a candle flame carried silently through the darkness. This is the same experience most of us have at this concert. Its incredibly strong to feel that one has moved miles listening to music.
A little bit about the conductor Daniele Gatti. His vigour and gusto in conducting these two pieces of music mesmerised most the spectators. This world renowned artist made us wonder in awe. His movements and body language was enormously depicted in the music he conducted. Without a piece of script he would conduct the orchestra for about 70 minutes at the stretch. This shows his expertise and his talent to music. It really baffled me that he could do this without any scrip and with enormous gusto and zest.
In conclusion I would like to express my thanks to Philharmonia Orchestra who put up a splendid performance which made me who is musical cripple to admire this romantic music, I am sure musicians out there will admire much better than I.
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