two concerts

After the Reading and Eating Meeting, which was Saturday afternoon, I headed immediately down to San Jose for a concert by their Symphony, because I was reviewing it. Having been out all day, I was a little tired, but not too much to appreciate the distinctiveness of this concert, which did a superb job of putting across Dvořák's Seventh, a work I'm not especially fond of, but was rather dull in Lalo's Cello Concerto, a rarely-heard work which, when it is heard, usually goes like gangbusters. To express this opinion in neutral reviewer language, I wrote, "this was a performance more contemplative than declarative."

Also contemplative, but in a good way because it's supposed to be like this, was a concert by Brocelïande, a seasonal celebration of medieval and Renaissance song, a Christmas concert without the usual overheard carols, instead mostly songs with words like "Wassail" and "Yule" in the titles, consequently a toasty joy to hear, the more so as it was, I think, the band's first live concert in this area since before the pandemic.

That was on Friday, a clear day between rain on both Thursday and Saturday, the first we'd had of that since the opening week of November, and thus a very good thing to have.