An Evening with Gideon

I had been waiting for Tuesday night since returning to Vienna. Well, scratch that, I had been waiting for Tuesday night since this summer, I just wasn’t sure at the time if I would be back in this romantic city when Tuesday, November 22^nd rolled around. Sometime in the summer I had looked up where Kremerata Baltica, a chamber orchestra comprised of young musicians from the Baltic states and headed by Gideon Kremer, would be touring. I had actually seen them perform last autumn at WFU for one of the Secrest Artist Series events and I was really impressed with their performance and quite taken with the pieces they performed – particularly “De Profundis” by Reminta Šerkšnytė. Being from the Baltics, I figured the odds of them performing in Europe were pretty high. It turned out that they were indeed going to be in Austria in the summer, but it just happened to be the same weekend I was going to Salzburg. I had also noticed that they would be in Vienna in November, but at the time I had no idea if I would be in Vienna in November. As it turns out, I am.

They were playing in the Musikverein, the famous Golden Hall where the Wiener Philharmoniker performs their annual New Years concert that's broadcast worldwide. I had my ticket. I had asked to have the night off early. I was ready to go. I arrived with plenty of time to spare and found myself getting into a conversation with the elderly gentleman sitting next to me. I’m not sure if he purposefully spoke slowly and clearly because it was apparent that I wasn’t a native speaker or if that was how he would have talked anyway, but I was able to converse completely in German with him, which was great.

They started with a piece by Mozart (how could they not) which was particularly neat because not only did they play it very well, they also played with it, inserting a few solos which I can only imagine were of their own devising; I doubt the original score included a solo for the timpanist!

My favorite piece of the night was easily Tchaikovsky’s, but that’s no surprise. I can’t recall how I arrived there, but sometime during that piece I found myself thinking back to one time when a guy that I had taken a fancy to was sharing some pieces of art that he was particularly fond of with me. I was, of course, commenting on them, and I remember quite clearly that he showed me a Rodin which invoked from me the response, half in jest, that I hoped someone would one day feel as passionately about me. He asserted that it was entirely factual that someone special would feel that way about me, but sometimes I wonder: what is my life going to be like ten years from now? Twenty? Forty? I wonder if I'll find someone to share a mutual passion with, and if I do, will we be able to maintain it, or will it fade away as the years go by? Nothing is forever, right? Is this just another chimera of my creations? I'm not sure what about this composition brought me back to that, or perhaps it's just that winter is coming on in general... who knows.

I remembered from the last time that I saw them perform that one of the contrabass players had the neatest carved scroll on his bass. Although I was sitting front and center for the last performance, I had not noticed it until the intermission, but I was curious if I would get to hear the melody from that lion’s head again. I noticed right away that the musician was there, although it was a little harder to see because I was further away this time. I was going to take a picture during intermission, but unfortunately I had left my phone lying on the table in my room. However, it looked a lot like this:

Although I think I actually preferred their first performance better for the company, price (free for students), seating, and pieces that they performed (they were more conservative in their selection for Vienna), I was still very happy that I got to see them perform again. I hope it was the second of more still to come.