Thursday night at the Symphony...

On Monday I saw that the DSO was performing one of my favorite pieces of music this week, Sibelius' Violin Concerto. I called and ordered a ticket in the nosebleed section of The Meyerson. All week long, I happily anticipated hearing this concert tonight. Then this morning as I was driving to work, listening to a CD of Itzakh Perlman playing the Sibelius with the London Symphony in preparation for hearing it live tonight, my cellphone rang. It was the ticket office at the DSO.

"You ordered a ticket for the concert tonight," a young woman said.

"Yes?"

"Well, we'd like to upgrade your seat. Is it OK if we move you to the orchestra section?"

WOO HOO! Of course it was OK! It was MORE than OK! It reminded me of the time years ago, when I was relatively broke, that I won a hundred dollar gift certificate to a really neat (now defunct) bookstore, Taylor's, on Beltline in Addison. This was an unexpected bonus, just as that had been. In terms of sound, there are almost no bad seats in the Meyerson, but that said, some seats are always better than others, and tonight I ended up in a great seat, where the sound was terrific: Section C, Row L, Seat 6, to be exact.

The orchestra started off with a 4 minute piece by Stravinsky: Scherzo a la Russe, and that was followed by the Sibelius. The orchestra and soloist Karen Gomyo, led by guest conductor Vasily Petrenko, played it beautifully. I absolutely love this concerto. It is such an incredibly beautiful piece of music, and to hear it live...it doesn't get much better than that. I was so happy, I had a glass of champagne at intermission. I love champagne.

After intermission, the final piece was a tone poem by Strauss: Ein Heldenleben. It's not what I would have chosen to follow the Sibelius. It had it's moments, but I thought it was overly long, sort of like eating an entire sacher torte: "Do you like sacher torte? Have some. Have some more. And more. And more."

Still, there is nothing like live music. And it's nice to know my parking karma apparently works at the symphony sometimes, too.