MK invited me to listen to the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO）all-Brahms program on Tuesday and said the BSO is very famous. I was wondering how to enjoy the performance because without lyrics music tunes don’t make sense to me.

Because Wednesday will be the last shopping day before Thanksgiving this year, we decided to move our weekly Thursday shopping to Tuesday. While driving to the supermarket, we chatted about my going to the Boston Symphony Orchestra (all-Brahms program) in the evening. Shirah, who is very knowledgeable about classical music, told me a bit about the composer Brahms, a German composer who was a fan of Beethoven and who never married. She said that Brahms’s symphonies are beautifully smooth and joyful. Shirah also told me: “Just relax and let the music talk with you.” I felt I was well-educated for my first Boston Symphony Orchestra concert.

Our seats were on the first row before the stage and right below the bass players. After we were seated, while watching the players on stage warming their hands and their instruments up, I started to take random photos of them. A silver-haired bass player spotted me photographing and started to play peek-a-boo with me by hiding his face behind his big bass, which made me laugh because I caught his smile right after he turned his head out from hiding behind the bass. Maybe this would be one of my memorable stories of my first Boston Symphony concert.

As this was my first time listening to the Boston Symphony performance and as I was a few feet away from the conductor, I started to watch the conductor’s expression while listening to the music. When I saw the conductor smiling, I felt I just heard a nice melody. The strings players, including the second violin players, the cello players, and the bass players, were in front of my eyes, I also enjoyed the beautiful motions of their bony elegant fingers and their concentration and passion. I noticed that the conductor’s fingers are puffy like children’s fingers, but the strings players’ fingers were all bony with strength.

The conductor’s expression and the strings players’ unified motions of their fingers were good visual aids to help me understand the music better during the first part of the concert.

During the second part of the concert, I started to close my eyes while listening, then I felt the music like a forceful rain pouring on top of me , I had nowhere to hide and no way to refuse it. The music was invisible and was really exhibiting the power of human magic, in a very foreign domain.

MK, a long-time Boston Symphony goer, gave me a tour inside Symphony Hall during intermission. He commented the gift shop and some other things were not available this year, because many people were still afraid of attending public events. It was interesting, I noticed many young players were wearing masks on the stage. But the conductor and silver-haired players were not wearing masks at all. Hope this can be wisdom for an ordinary life.

While continuing to close my eyes, I suddenly remembered my imagining of a natural concert at Walden Pond, where I had to carefully listen and catch the much softer and more distanced natural sounds of the trees, water, and footsteps.

Little Episodes

1. About tonight’s concert.
Brief introduction of the BSO concert

“Andris Nelsons leads an all-Brahms program pairing early and mid-career orchestral works. Concerned with living up to Beethoven’s precedent in the genre, Brahms labored on his First Symphony for twenty years before finally allowing it to see the light of day in 1876. With references to Beethoven, Brahms clearly places himself in the great German symphonic tradition. The warm and idyllic Serenade No. 2, written in 1859, is a five-movement work that omits violins, creating strong contrasts between strings and woodwinds. This lovely piece was dedicated to Brahms’s lifelong friend Clara Schumann.”

Photos of the BSO concert.

2. The first bass player Edwin Baker.

3. The second bass player Lawrence Wolfe, who was happily playing peek-a-boo while warming his hands and his bass up.

08-31-2017

Audrey, a close friend who was my roommate and coworker in the library during the early 1990s, recently told me about Dimash, a 22 year old superstar with a beautiful voice. “You will definitely like him!” Audrey said.

I listened to a few songs sang by Dimash and liked the beauty of sadness flowing in “Late Autumn(秋意浓)”. Then I remembered the song both my son and I liked to listen to called “Crying in the Rain” and many popular songs written by Jonathan Lee (李宗盛), wrote this story.

Once upon a time, I went on a drive with my son and heard the stereo on the car playing a new song which I was unfamiliar with. I then asked my son: “Is this a new song being played on radio?”

My son answered: “No, this is a song from my iPhone. My iPhone is connected via Bluetooth with this car.”

I liked the new song very much, which had slow and simple lyrics sung with a clear voice. I asked my son to play it again. My son said: “This is a sad song, do you still want to listen to it again?”

I said: “I didn’t hear any sadness, I only heard a touching beautiful voice. ”

My son played the song one more time and this time I could hear the sadness from the song. I could feel the beauty of sorrow, being blue without crying.

This experience brought back memories about many popular songs written by Jonathan Lee: listening to them the first time, I just liked them; listening to them again I felt the sadness carried in the songs; repeatedly listening to them, the songs seemed to be releasing a tear gas to me and my eyes were always wet afterwards.

Crying while listening to sad songs is like going through a good mental therapy session. The tears washed out the heaviness and brought forth a lighter fresher more natural mindset.

Now the tear gas contained in Jonathan Lee’s songs are expired and listening to them will remind me of the beauty of sadness without any tears.

I told my son: “Sadness can be beautiful too, you should learn to enjoy it.”

Life is easier sometimes after one learns how to appreciate the beauty in sadness.

I’ll never let you see
The way my broken heart is hurtin’ me
I’ve got my pride and I know how to hide
All my sorrow and pain
I’ll do my cryin’ in the rain

If I wait for cloudy skies
You won’t know the rain from the tears in my eyes
You’ll never know that I still love you so
Though the heartaches remain
I’ll do my cryin’ in the rain

Rain drops fallin’ from heaven
Could never wash away my misery
But since we’re not together
I look for stormy weather
To hide these tears I hope you’ll never see

Some day when my cryin’s done
I’m gonna wear a smile and walk in the sun
I may be a fool but till then darling you’ll
Never see me complain
I’ll do my cryin’ in the rain

I’ll do my cryin’ in the rain
I’ll do my cryin’ in the rain