So, my favorite pianist, Hélène Grimaud, is in Denver for a concert. To my knowledge, this is pretty rare, so I got a ticket as soon as I found out. I got a third-row ticket, which in my experience hadn’t been a thing I could get before. Third row, center, an aisle seat.
The day starts off pretty good, as I took it off from work and slept in.
Then, Hélène’s latest release that I had pre-ordered months ago, showed up. On the day I’m going to her concert, the only concert I’ll ever get to see her at.
So, I get to Boettcher Concert Hall early as recommended by the Colorado Symphony web site, and I have a nice conversation with two other earlybirds, who as it turns out, drove from the east coast just for this concert. I’m not the only Grimaud fan!
I get in, go to my seat, and I had to triple-check it, and then check with an usher, because my seat turned out to be first row. The two rows in front of me were covered by the stage, as the stage can be brought it a bit for other kinds of performances. On the online seating chart, those rows were listed as being sold out, but in reality, they just didn’t exist for this concert. I’m front row!
The concert started out with the Star Spangled Banner, of all things, and that was totally unexpected. The conductor, Peter Oundjian, said a few words, and then caught everybody but the orchestra off guard by jumping into the anthem. People didn’t even realize they should stand up for the first fifteen seconds or so! But it was great, it sounded good, and a nice way to start things off. I really enjoyed that!
So the first piece was not Hélène playing the Brahms Concerto, but rather the orchestra playing a newly written piece by a modern composer. (Carlos Simon: Fate Now Conquers) Most modern composers I’ve heard are hit-and-miss, so I wasn’t really thinking it would be any good, but it was really good. I genuinely liked it a lot! The entire piece is great, but there is a cello solo (for the section) that sealed the deal.
That’s something I’ve taken away from a lot of classical concerts, they’ll introduce one to some great pieces one might not ever hear before by piggy-backing them to the main event. I was introduced to “The Great” Symphony, and Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony this way, among others.
And then I realized; where’s the piano? Because I was so close, and sitting so low, I could only see the first row or two of the orchestra. Luckily, right when I was starting to panic a little bit, they roll it out. But here’s the thing: I didn’t just have a first row seat, which could have been to my right, where I’d be able to see the piano and no Hélène, or to my left, where I just see her from her back, so, no hands, but she was literally ten feet in front of me. Part of watching a piano concert is seeing the hands, and I had the perfect spot. It was like the concert was just for me! The two seats next to me, which, according to the online seating chart, were sold… those people never showed up. So I had the aisle seat, front row, Hélène ten feet in front of me, and nobody on the right of me. Just perfect!
And, since I’ve heard the recorded versions of this many, many times, hearing her play it live was amazing. I had no appreciation for what those hands have to do on those keys.
I couldn’t take any photos or videos, as the rules state that there is no flash photography (no flash is needed there anyway) and if the conductor is on stage, no phone cameras. So, I have some shots of the setup and the warmup, but that is it. And that is okay, it’s nice to not see phones everywhere. It’s about enjoying the live music. But I wish I could have taken a few shots though. It’s what I do.
I won’t get into what the Brahms concerto is like, why it is so great, why Hélène is such a great pianist, etc. That is something that has to be experienced to be accurately understood. The program they handed out tries to describe the pieces and how they sound and they make a good go of it. But of course, it’s better to hear these works and not just read about them.
After the concerto was done, there was the intermission. Time had already gone by faster than I had anticipated. The symphony starts up Beethoven’s Fifth (the best symphony ever, except maybe for the Ninth. If you don’t know the difference, that is a shame!)
So, the Fifth Symphony, front row. Amazing. And I really do like this conductor, whereas going in, I didn’t really care who it was!
So, after all of that, I stuck around for the question-and-answer with Peter Oundjian and Hélène. (front row, again!) And this is one of the great things about Hélène Grimaud, the way she talks about music, or just anything. She is very thoughtful, and insightful. Every time I see some mainstream music artist talk about what they do, it really contrasts things for me.
And there were some funny things in the question and answer session too, such as the question about the way Hélène sees colors (synesthesia) when certain sounds occur, I forget the rest of the context, but Oundjian said something when Hélène mentioned the color orange, he piped up and said something about a part of the concerto that was in F-Sharp, must have been written about the Broncos. I wish I had recorded this! But also, the way she answered the question, one just has to hear it. Eloquence. I don’t have that, and most people don’t. Now that I think about it, it’s kind of rare, which is why it stands out to me.
I had some questions lined up, but one of the early questions from someone else was really, really good, and my questions were definitely nowhere near that caliber. For the good of everybody, I just stayed quiet, because most of the questions were actually interesting. Sometimes, it’s best to just listen!
I got to talk that couple I met before the concert as I left, they are going again tomorrow, as they had a hotel room across the street. Lucky!
This is definitely the best concert of my life. A can’t think of a concert that could possibly be better than what I experienced tonight. Any concert at Boettcher is going to be really good, especially if they do works by the right composers. The talent of the symphony and the featured artists is never going to disappoint. But I’m not likely to get a seat like that, in front of my number-one favorite artist ever, under those conditions and with those pieces being played.
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