Your last concert was to see who and when?

I heard Renee Fleming sing in person with the Minnesota Orch. last Fri.
One off my bucket list. About all left now is to hear my beloved Gewandhaus Orch in their hall once more ere I shuffle off this mortal coil.

The problem , for me anyway, of going to Montreal is having to come back.

Minneapolis had a real concert last Friday I attended .
MN Orch. playing the Barber Cello Concerto which is a VERY hard piece but was well played and interesting.
Followed by Mahler 2nd which is , IMO, perhaps the most over rated work extant.Well played though.

Mahler said " My time will come" .
It did in the 60's when art became some clown throwing globs of paint on canvas, drug fueled noise was accorded musical status etc etc etc.
The problem with Mahler is there is FAR too much going on and it all is focused on him and his monster ego.
In short, a boring navel gazer .

I've been a subscriber to the bible "Grammphone" for over forty year and I never heard anyone say such a silly thing.
What I have read, many times,is like the following from J.S. Smith in"The Gift of Music" .

"One is aware that Mahler tried to do too much.His excesses can be heard in the exhaustive tension is his music and in the repetitions. His symphonies are long and they lack unity.They all begin to sound alike , and many times the composer finds it difficult to bring the music to a close"

IMHO Mahler is the fave of people who like entertainment sound more than music.

Map, you could have listened to Mahler 3 10.000 times without knowing it was "about " nature.

Czar, it is a great hall,believe it or not the Ted Mann Hall on the U of MN campus is even better !
Macalester College has a new superb sounding hall to showcase their excellent Early Music ensemble.
Twin Cities has more high art per-capita than anywhere in US.
Within 10 miles of my house there are 7 liberal arts colleges and the U of MN , there is a plethora of free and $5 bucks for senior events.
Not to mention 30 quality choral groups of which 5-6 are world-class.
Can't beat it with a stick !

Sat.4/24 Brahms "Schicksall" by the Macalester Orch. and Choirs at the Meirs Hall of Macalester College in St.Paul.
Macalester is an elite college and just spent 3 million on the adjustable acoustics of this hall, as good a 400 seat hall as I have ever heard.

Saturday night, the opening concert of the three week Twin-Cities Early Music Festival in Sunden Music Hall in St .Paul by the Lyra Baroque Orch.
Program of 4 Concertos , 1 by Telemann,1 by Vivaldi bookended by perhaps the greatest examples of counterpoint ever written, the two three-harpsichord concertos of Bach !
Ending Bach was done as well as it can be done and got a ten
minute standing ovation accompanied by VERY loud vocal acclaim ! Music was so good it REALLY was hard to believe it was written by a human being ! Musicians were even freaked out and clapping and hugging each other to death, as fine concert as concerts get !

You are making wise use of your time Bdp24 !
When I came out of the concert Saturday night I felt as if I was walking on air, and not as a figure of speech.
I've never done any drugs but Bach can alter your mental perceptions greatly .

Either that or hellish .

The excellent Brit Bach conductor Paul McCresch conducting
the St Paul Chamber Orchestra in the "Saint Matthews Passion " with the London based Gabrieli Singers.

The superb acoustics of the Ordway Center in downtown St . Paul contributed to as fine a performance as one could wish for !
The SPCO is truly world class , McCresch is notoriously outspoken and said as much .

Most unusual event, the best group of its size in America(NY Times),
the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra , played ALL 6 of Bach's Brandenburg
Concertos in a 2 1/2 hour concert.
The superb acoustics of the Ordway Concert Hall in downtown St. Paul
lets you hear every player throughout and all the works were played very well indeed . 
In particular #6 where two young Korean viola players made  it greatest performance of  that piece I have ever heard in person or on record !

Truly a concert of the very highest order .

Glad to see Cohoes Music Hall is still going, lived a few blocks away at one time , Capital District is one of USA's best kept secrets .

Taxes are rough, but could be worse , west of Albany Upstate NY pays taxes on NYC level with rust-belt wages .
But as they say taxes are the price of civilization .
Proctors is 'da bomb, love that place .

Would be if they were . Try Scotia .

Joshua Bell , Wieniawski Violin Concerto. Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis .