Monday Musical Offering--post-recital detox edition

Classical music is pretty thin on the ground here in Mayberry-on-Umpqua.  There is a youth orchestra, which symbolizes a parental investment in something that is not felt to be worth attention continued into adulthood; the same organization will occasionally sponsor a concert at the community college.  There's a community concert series, which brings in a lot of pop/classical crossover stuff that I don't really care for.  There's a concert chorale, which brings Handel's Messiah around every year, plus one other concert, which needs to include some pop.  There's a local winery that brings in some very good musicians from Eugene every now and then for some chamber music.  That's pretty much it.

The Real Doctor and I went to a recital last weekend at the winery: a graduate piano student at the U of O, from Russia, playing some standards--Beethoven's 1st sonata, Chopin's 2nd sonata, and the first set of Impromptus by Schubert.  I don't like to slag on people, so I'll say that it was the best piano recital I'd been to in years, and there were one or two interesting ideas.  I will note that the guy played like he was trying to fill a concert hall rather than a tasting room, and that there was very little in the way of tenderness.  It was a highly testosterone-driven bit of music making, and it left me feeling, in sympathy with the poor piano, a bit pummeled.  There were also more than a few memory lapses, one quite severe, that left me feeling terribly anxious.  And the piano itself isn't wonderful--a Pearl River upright, with a tone that left the Real Doctor and me feeling a bit on edge.  

I was sort of hoping for a concert experience that would provide a nice break from the frenzy of the last few months.  Instead, I've spent what music-time I've had in the last week listening to Radu Lupu and Mitsuko Uchida and others, trying to re-find a musical center.  

Oh well.  I can look forward to August, when the Douglas County Fair will be hosting Cheap Trick.