On Saturday night I have done something that I haven’t done since elementary school. I went to see a concert. It’s not an unusual way to spend a night out in Manhattan listening and dancing to a performance by a famous performer. Except I wasn’t dancing; I was sitting in Row QQ seat number 103. No mosh pit, just the patient and attentive stares of old ladies dressed in some of their finest furs and old men in suits drenched in musky cologne. The performance of the night was called The Bach Variations at Avery Fisher Hall. During the two hours there were four pieces played: J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Keyboard No. 5 in F Minor and Concerto for Keyboard No. 3 in D Major, Mendelssohn’s “Swiss” Sinfonia No. 9 in C Major, and Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 in D Minor.
I was fascinated and excited by the whole experience. I had to dress nicely and tastefully (which I had to borrow from my sister of course) and act elegantly and ladylike. But unladylike of me, I had to run to Lincoln Center with only 10 minutes to spare only to find out I mistakenly bought the wrong ticket. Thankfully the situation was fixed and I was seated in the second to last row. The orchestra looked tiny but at this type of concert it is the sound that matters.
I’ve managed to listen attentively to the first two pieces by Bach but during the third piece (which ran 23 minutes long) I comfortably began to drift away with the crescendo boom of the instruments startling me awake. It felt unfair that I, at 20 years of age, was falling asleep when there were folks three times my age not even breaking a yawn. No matter how much I tried to fight it, this happened one more time during the last performance.
Even though I was falling asleep I have to admit that it was an opportunity to experience a different side of the New York culture. I did not know that there were so many people living in this bustling, hasty, young and obnoxious city that escaped to these events. Everyone was polite and behaving very mannered and I couldn’t feel any more uncomfortable because of that – I knew that I am a dirty loudmouthed New Yorker. Once I left Lincoln Center, I was once again reunited with the horn-honking streets of Manhattan. My ears felt as if they were assaulted by the sudden rush of sound, laughter, talk, screaming, crying, and yelling -yet I couldn’t feel more at peace.
