An Orchestra Experience

Imagine this, if you would.

You are one of the many ticket-holders for tonight’s orchestra performance. Perhaps you have never been to such an event. You have seen numerous Rock, Hip-hop and/or Country/Western groups perform . . . Perhaps some even had pyrotechnics. You may have a dizzying collection of CDs and of course, all of your favorite stations are programmed into your media player. But just maybe, there is a chance that you have never seen a real orchestra perform live before. Sure, you have likely heard Grandmother’s old LPs of something called Classical Music, that doesn’t mean you actually listen to it. You would never have dreamed of actually paying to see anything but the most current artists . . . But someone, Maybe Granny, herself has given you a ticket to this very concert tonight and maybe you decided to go and see. Maybe you were forced to go, bored or just curious. But here you are.

Hoping none of your friends happen to be around to see you enter, you make your way through the foyer and into the large auditorium. There, just as you do at many other concerts, you scout around until you find a good seat.

The crowd is noisy. It is sort of like at some of those other concerts you have been to, you think as you glance around. But this is no rock concert, you remind yourself. It is too dressy. You look down, a bit ashamed at your ripped jeans and Grateful Dead tee-shirt that only a minute ago were totally in style. You sit, scrunching low in the red-velvet seat so that none of the other well-dressed concert-goers will notice you. Your attention is soon grabbed by the orchestra members, though. They are dressed up too, all in black and white as they sedately take their places on the stage. Each one bears some kind of musical instrument, a few of which you recognize. But there isn’t an electric guitar or keyboard among them.

The hall falls almost eerily silent. All in attendance are hushed in eager anticipation. Then the instruments are tuned, a clamor of dissonant sounds rising and then falling, somehow building the expectation even further. With that, the first vibrating hum of the orchestra floods the still air. There is a moment of quiet. Then the audience bursts into appreciative applause. You look up from your program to see the great conductor stride on stage in tie and tails. Quickly, he steps up to his podium, slim white baton ready and you realize that you have never once seen that at a rock concert!

The Orchestra waits expectantly, bows poised over silent strings, horns and woodwinds in position, eyes fixed on their leader. The conductor stands, motionless for just a moment, watching for readiness among his players. The concertmaster, sitting at the front of the violin section nods and he gracefully lifts his hands, signaling the orchestra to produce the first astonishing notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.

You listen enthralled as the orchestra brings to life a piece of music that is not new like ones on the play lists on your media player, but several hundred years old. Somehow, the dramatic and yes, loud notes are not unlike your favorite rock song. You glance again at the picture of Beethoven in your program and realize that with that wild hair, he even looks a bit like the members of your favorite band. It is then that you see that Beethoven and his fellow composers were indeed that rock stars of their time, and that they still have a big place in today’s music.

The orchestra fills the darkened hall with such awesome sound that for a moment you even expect the pyrotechnics to start. The sound rises up to echo forever among the gilded angels above you. You begin to imagine spiders in their rafter webs quivering with the sound and even secret creatures below the stage pausing their frantic scurrying to listen in wonder. But what you see most of all is the awe in the rapt faces of your fellow audience-members. It is they and you who give rousing approval at the finish of the final movement. And leaping excitedly from their seats, call out for an encore.

That is the orchestra, you understand. That is the finest sound on Earth.

Can one ever really hope to coax such enchantment from a radio or CD? No, of course not! Because there is simply nothing like being right there in the midst of the ultimate in surround-sound! It really comes down to quality and size. If all you have ever heard were those old LPs on that ancient record player with the undersized speakers, then you were really missing out. You know this just from going to rock concerts, but classical music has the same effect when it is played live with a real orchestra in a big hall, just as it was meant to be when it was written so long ago.

So, you think as you rise from your seat and follow the crowd out of the hall, somehow you are going to have to get those friends whom you had so recently hoped would not see you into another one of these concerts . . . Even if you have to “Double-Dog-Dare” them!

THE END