A Little Night Music

As part of a Mozart Festival (14th - 23rd July), the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is doing a series of performances featuring various songs throughout his career.

It's actually quite nice, the way that they did it, breaking the performance into 3 parts, with each part starting with someone reading out some excerpts from letters from, to, or about Wolfgang Mozart, or from his sister's memoirs. The parts they picked were fascinating, and it was a nice contrast to the movie I saw at the French Film Festival, which was from the point of view of Nannerl (his sister).

The songs that were performed:

Allergo in C, K1b
Andante in C, K1a
Allergo in F, K1c
Minuet in F, K1d
Minuet in C, K1f
Minuet in G, K1e

Symphony No.1 in E flat, K16

Exsultate, jubilate  - Motet, K165
Adagio in E, K261

Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Serenade No. 13 in G, K525
Symphony No. 31 in D, K297 'Paris'

Ever since QC admonished people for clapping at the wrong time during the Sidney Myer free concerts, I've always been really self-conscious about clapping at classical music performances (you're not supposed to clap after each song, but rather after each set. If you are too noob to recognise when a set is over, like me, it's safest just to clap once other people have started clapping). But I don't think anybody clapped at the wrong time at this one - maybe there was a plant in the audience to "seed the clapping" so that everyone else knew when to clap, I'm not sure.

My guilty admission is that I enjoy watching the conductor more than listening to the music. I like to imagine he's performing a mime, and making up my own story as I go.

This conductor looked like he worked at McDonald's. At the start, he was pushing burgers onto the slidey-rack thing for the front staff to bag up and give to customers. Then, he started preparing more burgers, chucking patties onto the grill, flipping them over, and then gently placing the buns on top, sprinkling them with sesame seeds (I know that the buns at McDonald's are pre-seeded, but that's what it looked like he was doing).

Halfway through, he was looked like he was in the breakroom, putting little chocolates in his mouth, but taking a bit and rejecting them - tossing the poor chocolates onto the floor. This put him in a bad mood, so once his break was over, he began stamping his foot, ranting at his co-workers that this place sucks! But it was time for the lunch rush, and so it was back to angrily throwing patties onto the grill, but much faster this time, and with more gusto! He starts gesturing to the other workers. You on the left, this is how it's done: patty, cheese, lettuce, bun, wrap it up to go. Now you on the right, get those chips in the fryer. Down. Down. Down.

Flip those burgers. Gently place the buns on top. Quick, put them on the slidey rack thing.

You can see what a cultured person I am.... In all seriousness, the amazing music made a nice backdrop for my private movie, and I really enjoyed watching the performance.