The Messiah, Avery Fisher Hall, 12/17/14

This was the third concert in the series that I got because I wanted to see Josh on September 17.

The first I blogged about already.  

The second was disappointing to me, because I went hoping to hear Joshua Bell play, but I experienced narcolepsy as soon as his bow hit the stings. That's been a recurring problem for me: classical music giving me narcolepsy. So I can't even describe his playing. That's one if the things I've always hated about classical music.

After Bell was a piece by a Russian composer, whose music kept me awake by the crude device of extremely loud drumming. Just not a great experience.   I do wonder if they're adequately monitoring that carbon dioxide in those places, or whether it's really the music itself.

Anyway, the Messiah, I'm glad to report, did not give me narcolepsy. I'm not sire I've every heard the whole thing before. It's really quite a long piece. I did get a bit drowsy and bored by end, but basically it was a good experience, and no narcolepsy. Perhaps that was because of the vocal solos having a different acoustic quality from the violin. Perhaps it was better ventilation. I'm not sure, but I appreciated the difference.

I am a real sucker for child singers. They had am eleven year old boy, Connor Tsui, singing a few passages. His voice and diction were delightfully clear and strong, and he was the only one on stage who had memorized his part.

I once sang at least part of the Messiah. I seem to recall the soloists bring soprano, alto, tenor, bass. Here they had soprano, countertenor, tenor, bass. I suppose this was more authentic, as probably they had no women singing on stage in Handel's time, and the countertenor was excellent, but it did feel a bit male dominated.

I thought the baritone was the weakest soloist. The part called for a bass. I was craving someone with a deeper, more booming voice.

This was an evening where I was acutely conscious of how exciting it is to be in NYC during the Christmas season.


I walked from Grand Central Station to Lincoln Center via Rockefeller Center and Columbus Circle. Rockefeller Center was jammed with tourists. It was almost impossible to get through there.   I thought about how people watch this stuff on TV and YouTube all over the world, and I get to go there all the time.

I remembered seeing David Foster performing there at Rockefeller Center via the Internet. He came from California to do that.

When they sang the Alleluia chorus during the Messiah, I cried. I was so glad to get to experience that.