Sometime in May Washington area's music organizations started selling tickets for tentatively scheduled live summer concerts. The first sales went very much like the early offers of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. You had to get your computer ready ahead of the appointed start of the ticket sales and jump in as quickly as you could into the organization's website. The battle for a seat, or rather seats since individual tickets were not available, was as fierce as the battle for a vaccine in January and February. The experience reminded me of my youth in former Yugoslavia, where often we had to line up and fight for our share of coffee, tooth paste, toilet paper or some other scarce commodity.
The first concert to line up for as the Covid restrictions eased in May was the National Symphony Orchestra's performance at the Kennedy Center, featuring Russian virtuoso pianist Daniil Trifonov. The immediate obstacle was logging into my account. The website kept rejecting my user name and password. If I tried to get in as a guest, I was able to move two seats into the shopping bin, but when I reached the payment page the frustration continued. The system automatically added a $50 donation to your bill, which theoretically you could refuse, but when you did, your seats disappeared from the shopping basket. My friend was trying simultaneously on her lap top with the same result. We concluded that only people who agreed to pay the donation could purchase tickets. By the time we figured that out, all the tickets were gone.
I managed to obtain a ticket through a different channel and saw what had sparked the fierce battle for seats. Out of 2,500 the Kennedy Center filled only about 260.
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, May 28, 2021, photo: Z. Hoke
The small group of patrons ushered into the concert hall spoke in hushed tones as if going to a funeral. Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter struck a cheerful note with brightly colored clothes, better suited for a summer lunch al fresco than a Friday evening concert. She thanked the patrons for coming, seemingly oblivious of the struggle they had gone through to win the honor.
On arrival to the podium, Maestro Gianandrea Noseda was so emotional that he cut his greeting short. Overall, the event, with a drastically reduced orchestra as well as the audience, had the aura of a rehearsal rather than a real concert, but when the music started, the magic of yore returned.
The opening set was Four Noveletten, a rarely heard work by black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. U.S. music organizations are now including at least one piece by a black composer in every new program to make up for years of neglect of African-American talent. The Coleridge-Taylor piece and Haydn's Symphony No. 95 that framed Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.1 were pleasant, fluffy and forgettable in the face of the powerful piece performed by masters such as Trifonov at the piano and William Gerlach with the trumpet.
The second NSO concert on June 3 was designed to entertain. Called "surprise", it did not reveal the program except to say that Maestro Noseda would engage with the audience. Perhaps that's why it was a little easier to get the tickets. I expected a list of popular short pieces by well known composers, but I should have given more credit to Noseda. In many ways, the event was more fun than a usual classical music concert because it comprised six pieces that were either written by little known composers or were obscure pieces by well known composers. Noseda was in a cheerful mood as he made the audience guess what the orchestra was playing. Again, he opened with a black composer, William Grant Still. I had never heard Still's Serenade before, but was able to recognize that the music was American. I even whispered to my companion: "sounds like old Hollywood." As it turned out, Still had written arrangements for Hollywood musicals.
The program included another black composer, Washington D.C. native George Walker, with his Lyric for Strings. Richard Strauss, Samuel Barber and Ottorino Respighi were probably the best known composers in the program, while Still, Walker and Italian Giovanni Bottesini were lesser known. Bottesini, dubbed the "Paganini of the double bass" is credited with developing bass technique that has opened up people's eyes (or ears) to the instrument's versatility. NSO's, principal double-bass Robert Oppelt was given the opportunity to shine in Bottesini's Elegy No. 1 for Bass and Strings.
Noseda also showcased the orchestra's clarinetist Lin Ma, bassoonist Sue Heineman and harpist Adriana Horne in Strauss's Duet-Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon with String Orchestra and Harp.
The most exciting piece for me was the closing, Respighi's Gli ucelli (Birds) whose tune I recognized immediately and could hum along all its five movements, but could not guess what it was. Don't you hate it when that happens?
The NSO will perform in Wolf Trap later this month, introducing another rare piece, The Anonymous Lover by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges from 1870, another black composer. How I would love to be there, but I'll be away. I will return to Wolf Trap in July after a two-year absence. The tickets for the two concerts I plan to attend were sold in "pods" of two to eight. While the small audiences at the Kennedy Center concerts felt sad despite the obvious advantages (no rustling of cough-drop wraps, or patrons sucking at their water bottles right next to your ear) a smaller audience at Wolf Trap's Filene Center will be a blessing. For years I have eschewed the mass shows there, opting instead for a more intimate setting at the Barns. But this summer that option is not available.
Museums also are reopening to a reduced number of visitors and shorter hours. The need to secure timed passes eliminates the spontaneity of going to see art when you feel like it. After three years of waiting (nothing to do with Covid) and several letters of complaint, I managed to obtain passes for the National Museum of African American History and Culture for June 30. Who knows if it will be hot or pouring on that day, whether I will have a headache, or whether I will feel like doing something entirely different, but June 30 it is and I should count my blessings.
The pandemic has taught me lessons: not to take free museums in DC for granted, to feel privileged when I am able to attend a concert or visit a museum, and to prepare physically and mentally for the cultural event I am seeing. Arts and culture deserve our full attention and appreciation, which we often forget when they are easily accessible.
