Last night my best friend, Jacob took me to see a performance of the Brahms’ Quintet in F minor for Piano and Strings, Opus. 34 (1862). The performers were Christopher Taylor and the Ying Quartet. All I have to say is that NOTHING beats a live performance of music and Johannes Brahms is a bad ass mother f***er! It was a passionate performance by all and I was soooo into it. The second movement Andante, un poco Adagio was so moving that I just started to cry. When the quintet finished the Scherzo: Allegro, I had to bite my tongue from screaming and clasp my hands to not start clapping ferociously. If you can’t tell, I loved the performance. The way that Brahms develops melody and his use of harmony and counterpoint is amazing. As I was listening, I kept thinking “who can do that?!?” Being a composer, I just feel overwhelmed by the thought of trying to produce works that are so masterly developed and beautiful, it makes one sometime re-evalute their occupation (well, sort of..) Anyways, the F minor Quintet is such a beautiful piece and I felt so grateful that Jacob discovered it was happenning and even bought my ticket! (yup, that’s my best friend for ya, he is the BEST). The rest of the performance was really great too. After intermission the quintet performed a Webern piece and a piece from Peter Lieberson, a composer I didn’t know. Overall, I had a great night of music, although I did go out to eat after the concert and that was definitely not as good as the concert I just went to see. I believe that it’s not good karma to reveal the name of the restaurant. All I can tell you is that the vibe and the service sucked. It was a pan asian place up in the Columbia University area (that’s all I’ll say). I finally came home and finished the night with a nice bowl of Ben and Jerry’s Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch (one of my faves).
It was a wonderful night regardless of the food. When I finally went to bed a whole other event happenned but, that’s another story that I might tell another time.