This past Monday, I had attended a concert that was a part of the InterSchool Orchestras of New York Spring Concerts series. It was at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre and the concert was performed by a few different orchestras.

I chose to go this concert because I wanted to see how the concert compared to the concerts that I had performed in when I was part of the chamber orchestra in my high school. It felt like since I had been a part of an orchestra, I was focusing on the orchestra a little bit more and on the music a little bit less. From the beginning when the concertmaster stood up to play the A string so that everyone else could tune their instruments so that they all resonated to the same pitches until the conductor and the orchestra took their final bows, I felt nostalgic from remembering the many times that I had been a part of that process.

Then one of the orchestras proceeded to play a piece that I had played when I was in my old orchestra. It was Mozart’s 1st movement of his Symphony No.25 in G Minor. Mozart’s reputation as a composer of many genres has been profound and everlasting and I finally realized it because of how I vividly remember how the piece sounded.

I remembered the first note being the most important of the piece because of how its accented trait sets the tone for the rest of the piece and the orchestra played it with a passion that satisfied my expectations. As the song went on, I turned my attention more to the orchestra on things such as how responsive the members were to their conductor, how they communicated between each section, and how the players in the back compared to the players in the front. I also remembered how the dynamics were vital in how the piece should be played. When the conductor gestured to the orchestra members to play in piano, they played as soft as possible and when the conductor wanted them to play in forte, they played with such ferocity that the hair on their bows would have fallen off. The finale was strong in that it ended the piece in a manner that was characteristic of the powerful playing of the movement.

The whole concert was pleasing from listening to live orchestras and reminding me of how much enjoyment there is in being part of an orchestra. I never had the chance to listen to another orchestra before so it was  an interesting feeling to see how I might have conducted myself when I used to perform in concerts.