The Arts in NYC 2010

We went to Carnegie Hall to see a concert with two pieces, Violin Concerto in D Major by Beethoven and the Harmonielehre by John Adams. The story is that the beginning of the Violin Concerto was inspired by someone knocking on his neighbor’s door five times in succession. Similarly, John Adams was in the midst of a long period of writer’s block when he wrote Harmonielehre. He was inspired by a dream he had of an oil tanker coming out of the San Francisco Bay and zooming off like a rocket. The famous violin prodigy/soloist Midori played in the Beethoven piece and she was amazing! So much energy and passion. The John Adams piece was very different from anything I’ve heard before, but it was also extremely good. A few days later, we took a tour of Carnegie Hall with the Archivist himself. Here are some pictures of an empty Carnegie Hall: