While yesterday was pretty nice weather-wise (or at least good enough to bike in to work), I planned to go to Casa Loma in the evening for a concert where the Toronto Concert Orchestra was going to play Schubert's 8th Symphony (Unfinished) and Dvorak's 8th Symphony. That meant I took the streetcar again and saw another unfortunate incident where some old geezer started shouting at the woman next to him that "It wasn't alright" that she asked him to stand up (or at least move over) so she could get off at her stop. Honestly, if it is going to be like this I am going to try to bike through most of the winter, assuming there is no snow or sleet or ice. I am biking in today, but Friday looks like another thunderstorm.
Anyway, after a somewhat difficult day at work, I was running slightly late, and I was a bit winded and sweaty from climbing up all the stairs to get to Casa Loma. I managed to get in on time, but there were very few seats. I finally sat on the concrete ledge near the corner of the band shell. That would have been fine, but the couple on the actual bench near me gave up their seats for a mother with her two children. Even the older of the two was only about 7 and not into the music, while the younger one was maybe 3 or 4 and was a real handful. I just found her a selfish person for taking children into a setting that wasn't right for them and then even more so when she so blatantly sided with the young one who kept going over and pushing his brother. She struck me as a pretty sad excuse for a mother. But there was a lot of selfishness on display, including an older woman just slightly further away who took a seat reserved for a blind man and then tried to put her bag on the only remaining space.
All this is to say that I was fairly distracted from the music for long stretches. While the setting is beautiful, they have basically set this up as a 19th Century concert experience where there are lots of people on the lawn eating (and talking) through the concert and the audience claps after every movement. I guess you do have the eating on the lawn at Ravinia and other summer festivals, but the clapping in between the movements is a definite throwback. Now this was a semi-professional orchestra, but they were so much better than the Vancouver Philharmonic. It would have been far better to have the Vancouver Phil in this relaxed setting where the music didn't matter quite so much, and to put the Toronto Concert Orchestra in a church where people would focus more and be better behaved.
When it became clear that the woman actually expected to come back after the intermission and inflict more music on her children, I decided to go up to the ledge overhanging the garden. Unfortunately, that meant standing through all of Dvorak 8. And just as the music started, the woman turned up right next to me again (apparently having lost her seat on the bench). It just seemed so unfair, though since there was nowhere to sit, she only stuck it out for a few minutes and then left with children in tow. I really am not a child-hater, but I firmly believe that children should be introduced to culture gradually and not put into settings where they have to act mature beyond their years. I also don't believe in keeping children up past their bedtime just so that adults can get out of the house. Consequently, my children are only now getting to venture out and do more of these adult things, and I still try hard to keep it down to about an hour, which is basically their limit.
As far as the music (when I could focus on it) I thought Schubert's 8th was played well. I recall a musician from university who said that it was perfect the way it was, but I found that the piece really needed a stronger ending to close. And I did enjoy Dvorak's 8th. I've probably heard it live 3 or even 4 times now, and it has become clearer in my mind. It's creeping up there but still hasn't overtaken (nor likely ever will) Dvorak's 9th Symphony as my favourite Dvorak symphony.
I'm still working my way through Demons and enjoying it, though there is such a huge cast of characters. The action has shifted away from something akin to Turgenev's A Month in the Country to more of a novel of ideas -- and quite dangerous ones at that. I'll try to make a push to read another large chunk this weekend. When I am not taking the kids around to the zoo and the Science Centre of course.
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