What a wonderful night of music we had!  I’m still humming some of the tunes.

Our outing began on a warm autumn night with a walk to St. Stephans Auditorium. Traffic was heavy and people were out enjoying the evening. We arrive in the piazza a half hour early and met two other ladies, one from California and one from Australia, who were also there for the concert.  We sat on the steps of the old church and exchanged stories of our time in Florence.  Suddenly we were being rained on and we headed for an overhang on one of the buildings to escape getting wet.  People arrived and umbrellas were raised.  After about twenty minutes the huge doors to the theatre opened and we entered the church.  The walls on both sides of the seats were draped with huge white sheets from floor to ceiling and  lights projected images of various scenes on each of them.  Colored lights lit the front altar area where rows of chairs waited for the musicians to arrive. A winding staircase on each side of the “stage” gave me a wonderful inspiration for a quilting pattern.  I can’t get away from my quilting for long! I took a picture so I won’t forget.

We were lucky and sat front row center.  I have never been to anything front row and center unless you count being in a movie theatre when I was a kid on a Saturday morning craning my neck upwards to see the screen. I can’t do that anymore.  I had a few minutes to take some pictures before the musicians filed in, eight men and two women. As they took their places, the audience became quiet in anticipation and the first notes were played. The nine stringed instruments played as one, the chamber music reverberating to the very peaks of the dome above them. The harpsichord  player joined in occasionally, the first time I have ever seen the instrument. I sat and listened to Vivaldi with a bit of Bach and Mozart, the pure, clear sounds rising and falling as the tunes commanded.  I know very little about classical music but I certainly recognized many of the melodies and only wished that I had a program to know the names of each song.  I never knew when to clap.  I’m more used to jazz and we clap all the time but this was so different.  I guess you don’t clap in between movements, Joey told me, and it felt odd to just sit there waiting for them to play the next one. I have lots to learn. We truly enjoyed our night of culture.

When we left the concert we were greeted by pouring rain and we made our way home quickly as there wasn’t a lot of  traffic and few people on the streets to fight through.  We arrived home safely although soaking wet and chatted about the night for a bit before heading to get into our warm jammies and then into bed.