A Quartet Vs. An Orchestra

After attending both a quartet and an orchestra, I have to say that I enjoyed the orchestra more. The quartet was more cozy and comfy, especially the distance between my seat and the stage. I could clearly see every person’s face when. The hair from one person flapping up and down as he was swaying to the music and another performer falling over his viola. It was very well performed, but I wasn’t exactly captured by the music. They were very talented indeed, but it wasn’t exactly as big of a production and it didn’t have as much of an impact as the Carnegie Hall performance did. But I do understand that the four performers at the 92^nd street Y were extremely skilled because since there were only four performers, if any one person made a mistake, it would have been very obvious, while at Carnegie Hall, if one person made a mistake, it wouldn’t be as obvious since there were more performers to cover your mistake.

The hike up to my seat at Carnegie Hall was completely worth it. I thought I was going to be late for the show, and the large amount of stairs didn’t help me either. When I got to my seat, I noticed how beautifully simply the inside of it was. Compared to the Met Opera House, it was very plainly white and embroidered- no chandeliers and no fancy lighting either. The Stage was simply a space that had wooden floors and no curtains – something I also noticed. But when I finally sat down, I noticed how awkward the seating was. Even though I’m rather short, my knees were almost touching the head of the person sitting in front of me. It made me feel very uncomfortable because I felt like I would knee her in the head, or even if I lean back myself, the person sitting behind me, would knee me in the head. So throughout the two hours that we were sitting there, I tried not to move anywhere.

The Carnegie Hall Performance really had a big impact on me. The music that the performers produced was really strong in a sense that it was more “inspiring” then it was “soothing.” I was really surprised to see that all the performers were able to move their bows at the same time. Even though every performer was swaying to his/her own beat of the music, I could tell that every person was focusing on the conductor and each person was using the tip and the frog of the bow at the same time. I was also very interested in the way the performers dressed. All the women wore long black dresses and most of them had their hair tied up in a bun. All the men wore black suits, and I thought they were all uniform in what they wore and I thought it made the whole occasion not only elegant, but also very professional. Even though I couldn’t see every single person’s face on stage, I was very happy to look over that small detail, and be able to listen to the strength of the music, even from a large distance from my seat to the stage.

Something that was very strange that I noticed from both performances was that after each song, people in the audience would start coughing, as if they were holding the longest cough throughout the performance so that they wouldn’t distract the performers. It was strange to see everyone coughing, sneezing and moving around right after the song, that it made a huge restlessness between the songs. I’m not much into going to classical performances, so maybe I’m not very knowledgeable about these rituals, but do people actually cough at the end of each performance? Or was this just a coincidence?