Mmm…yummy, yummy music.

Can’t believe it’s taken me so long to write this, but here we go…!

So, I got to hear the Cairo Symphony on Saturday night – it was the first official concert of the new conductor (a lovely Czech gentleman by the name of Jiří Petrdlík – and yes, after hearing him say it twice and various other people say it, well, a lot more than twice, I still can’t pronounce his last name).  Mom stayed home, but Dad and I went, and repaired to a pub (yes, in Cairo!) with a friend of his after.

One of the snazzy things about the Cairo Opera House (where the Symphony performs) is that they still have a dress code – my dad actually got turned away once because he wasn’t wearing a jacket and tie.  (Considering that this is my father, who wears ties to teach half the time, I find the image highly amusing.)  So we both dressed to the nines (well, more like the eight-and-a-halves, but whatever), I left off my by-now customary hat (figuring that since I’d be with my dad, people – ahem guys in the street ahem – wouldn’t bother me) and dug out my heels and cute purse, and off we went!

Granted, it was a Saturday night (which is the equivalent to Sunday night in the States – the last night of the weekend before work starts back up the next morning), but it still seemed awfully empty.  A shame, really – Maestro Petrdlík is a lovely conductor, and it seemed to me that he deserved a larger welcome.  It was certainly a warm welcome, though.  I know a handful of Czech persons from the embassy came, and I’m guessing that various others from around the city made an appearance as well.  The Symphony is, after all, one of the most important musical bodies in the city, so even though there weren’t that many people at the concert, I was glad to see that the people who were there were so enthusiastic about welcoming the new maestro.

The program was interesting – billed as “A Tribute to Nature” and featuring Finlandia (Sibelius), La Mer (Debussy), and Beethoven Six (with an intermission after the Debussy).  Perhaps an odd combination, but with the intermission, it worked reasonably well.  Thing is, while the Beethoven is standard fare for the Symphony, the other two pieces definitely aren’t – and they’re hard rep.

This is in large part why I admire what the Maestro did so much.  The Symphony has been, well, not phoning it in, per se, but skating by, for years now.  There are a lot of very fine players in there and they have the potential to play at an incredible level, but somehow, they just…don’t.  They play a lot of standard rep, they know all the music and have for ages, and so they can get away with coming to rehearsal underprepared, perhaps without really practicing, and they don’t “have” to really pay attention to one another as an ensemble.  They pretty much just play, and it’s fine, because everyone accepts it.  So they’re a perfectly lovely group, but not a truly great one – certainly not the world-class ensemble that a city like Cairo deserves.

What the Maestro did with this concert (and with his last, the concert he was given to program/conduct as part of the application/audition process for his post – he did Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and a Bruckner symphony and something else, also very difficult, I forget what) was, I think and hope, the start of a change to that mindset.  He had limited rehearsal time for the concert, and the music he picked was very difficult and out of their usual comfort zone; this forced concentration and a strong, collaborative effort toward group cohesion, and it’s clear from the performance that he encouraged those efforts through very strategic rehearsal choices.

And the beauty of it is, you could literally see and hear the improvement as the concert progressed!  It was the most fascinating thing!  The Symphony is a tad notorious for playing a little behind the beat, and that’s where they were at the start of Finlandia; by the end of the Beethoven, they were right on the beat with the Maestro.  And the sound overall – the musicality, the blend, the tuning even, all of it – improved as the concert went along.  The Sibelius was meh – not great, but certainly just fine.  The Debussy was so-so at the start, but the third movement was really quite lovely.  And then after the intermission, when they came back for the Beethoven (which they’ve all known for years) – it just gelled, and there were some absolutely beautiful moments.

I think/hope that it’s an indicator of things to come.  If the Maestro was able to achieve that on, say, three rehearsals, I can’t wait to see where the Symphony will be in, say, a year.  More varied rep, harder rep, better interpretations of those pieces that they’ve been doing for years, a more cohesive sound…  I love Cairo, and I love the Symphony.  I’m excited to see this.

The audience I think agreed – there was an awful lot of applause at the end of the concert, as well there should have been.  And I was gratified to see that the Maestro was a gentleman about it – not showing off, not “braggy” or awkward the way a lot of conductors can be – a class act.  He strikes me overall as a good egg.  It was the same in watching him conduct (we were in the second row – what we get for buying our tickets the night of, alas – so at least I could see everything) – you could tell he was really connecting to the orchestra, not gesturing for the sake of gesture.  He was up there raising his eyebrows, making eye contact with sections, and occasionally (especially as the concert went on and the sound improved) grinning widely at various sections at various times, clearly pleased that something he’d been hoping for had happened.  That’s refreshing to me as a musician – I love love love seeing conductors who aren’t afraid to feed into the ensemble and react as they work.  Poker-faced maestros just don’t do it for me.

Also, for my fellow music/conducting geeks in the crowd:  HE WAS USING MINI SCORES TO CONDUCT.  Not full scores.  MINI.  In short, he was basically memorized.  I’m in awe.  Them’s some chops right there – more so because apparently, he never uses anything but mini scores.  I don’t even – I just – I can’t – no words.  (No, I’m not fangirling over here, I don’t know what you’re talking about, lalalaIcan’thearyou…!)

A good start, in short, and a very lovely concert.  Of course we went backstage after (love how Dad just charged right on through the “staff only” door to head for the wings!) and chatted with everyone and his brother…  Thing about Cairo (er, one of them, anyway) is that the classical music scene is tiny, so everyone knows everyone.  (This is super nifty for me, because it means I get to meet lots of cool, interesting, successful musicians!)  So he was saying hi to half the orchestra, and most of the principals, and ducked in to see the Maestro, and then afterwards, we met up with a colleague of Dad’s, David, to hang out and drink and discuss.

Said colleague is one of the finest pianists in the city and also one of Dad’s good friends here.  Apparently it’s a tradition for them (and various friends/colleagues of theirs) to go sit in the pub in Zamalek and analyse and debate and gossip and chat after any concert, rehearsal, etc…so even though David wasn’t able to make the concert, off we went to Deals (the local pub).

Oh, Deals. I don’t know how to explain it, really.  The setting looks mostly like a standard pub, but a little swankier than average.  The bar is about as well-stocked as any bar gets here (I think I counted maybe 15 bottles, and a handful of beers), and it’s mostly full of dudes, perhaps in their thirties, hanging out.  Rather smoky, even on a Saturday night, because it’s Egypt and everyone smokes (and no one cares).  And because Dad and David wind up there at least once a week, the bartenders and waiters all know them and their order, meaning there was no dearth of Stella Local and our French fries arrived with all due rapidity and deliciousness.  Also, because I was there with two men (one clearly old enough to be my dad, the other clearly a family friend), there was a lot of staring (fair enough, I was wearing ridiculous earrings and a very bright scarf) but no outright skeeziness – a success in my book these days.

So we sat around and drank and talked and drank and gossiped and drank.  Typical Saturday night, right?  Couple of beers at the local pub after a nice concert, lots of gossip and French fries, all very homey.  And I have to say, after sitting around at home an awful lot, for various reasons, it felt nice to get out and rejoin society.  I’m looking forward to doing that more often for sure.

All in all, Saturday night can safely be deemed a success for all parties involved, and I can’t wait for more like it.

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