Diversionary activities February 12, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , trackbackAll through my original degree, and subsequent addiction to random diplomas, my oven was always polished at exam time. The cleaning of kitchen cupboards happens, as if by miracle. Some things never change. I’m doing a journalism course, an assignment was due yesterday, and here I am, blogging. I’d probably be better off cleaning the oven.
My assignment is to write a review, and I found it hard to decide what to write about. I’ve done very little cultural lately except watch TV, it being winter and all. On Sunday night, I ventured out to the Barbican to see the London Symphony Orchestra with their Chorus perform Dvorak’s 8th, and Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass.
The LSO and chorus are a real treat, something I’ve only done once before with Beethoven’s Ninth back in 2006. As then, the full impact of the 200+ singers is magnificent transporting the audience with the power of so many human voice united in devotional music. The text is in Old Church Slavonic, which is completely incomprehensible to me, accentuating the music of the voices.
If I was reviewing this for my assignment, I’d do a little more about the background of the two pieces, the LSO’s Belief series of which is a part, and the conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas, but actually thinking of something sensible to say about the performance itself is very hard work, given that these weren’t pieces I know and my knowledge of classical music is limited to ‘I don’t know much about it, but I know what I like’. A review that says ‘I like this’ won’t earn me many marks, sadly.
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Blogging is the best way of procrastinating – far superior to Facebook and solitaire. If it wasn’t for looming deadlines, how many blogs would no longer be with us?