Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22

On the 28th of February, I attended the Seattle Symphony's performance of Mozart's piano concerto No. 22. The performance was at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle.

I was up on the second tier and being up so high gave me a good vantage point of the orchestra. I also had a very good vantage point to look down on the people on the main floor. It's surprising to me that people can fall asleep during such a wonderful performance.

 Providing some historical context, I will talk about Mozart. Mozart is considered one of the greatest composers. I'm sure that some would try to argue that he is the best. He produced over 600 works. This is an astonishing feat as he only lived to be thirty-five. Mozart is known to have composed many different types of music. Some of these included operas, choirs, and symphonies. Being a child prodigy Mozart was composing music when he was five years old. Mozart learned from his father, Leopold, and later toured with him where Mozart and his sister performed as child prodigies together. As someone that showed such great promise he did not disappoint. Even up until his untimely death at thirty-five he was still creating  great  works of art. One of his more famous works, The Magic Flute, was composed during his last year alive. We can only guess at what may have been yet to come if his life was not stolen from him at such an early age.

Benaroya Hall

 I really enjoyed the performance. It was amazing. Benaroya Hall is a great venue. When you initially enter the building you are confronted with a long corridor and at either end of the corridor are two wonderful Chihuly chandeliers all in white, one at each end. Being on the second tier there was a bit of a climb to get where we needed to be, but it was well worth the travel.

  

Chihuly Chandelier

It was really interesting watching some of the little things that you can hardly hear, but still make up a piece. During the performance I was fixated on this cellist at one point. He was the only cellist playing at the time and at first I thought he might be tuning his instrument or something of the like. But upon closer inspection he was lightly strumming his cello to the beat of the current movement. It seems really interesting that certain players will end up playing different roles. You would think that when they need a cello's sound all of the cellists would play, but it appears to have more depth than that. I'm unaware if this instance was a choice of Mozart's or an interpretation of the Seattle Symphony's.

While watching the performance I noticed another interesting thing about the orchestra. All the men were in matching clothes while the women players all varied in slight ways. It seemed to me that the dress code for the men might be a little more strict compared to the women. The common factor for the women was that they all were wearing black. I can only speculate to reasons why there is additional leniency in dress code for the female players. For the men it was fairly evident there was a strict dress code, since they were matching all the way down to the bow tie and shoes.

As to the music itself, I have never consciously gone out of my way to experience classical music, but as I was sitting there I would constantly recognize pieces of the music. It really goes to show how celebrated some of these composers are. Over two-hundred years after Mozart was alive and initially wrote this piece and people are still listening to it and recognizing him for his achievements in the musical arts.