Chuck Haga: I felt like life was starting up again
At a recent concert at the Masonic Center, the music was serenely beautiful. But it wasn t just about the music – it was seeing it played and actually feeling it.
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Chuck Haga | ×
Chuck Haga is a columnist for the Grand Forks Herald. (Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald)
Two friends sat together last Sunday in the Grand Forks Masonic Center’s theater, masked but together, surrounded by other fans of classical music – couples, families, individuals – spaced but more part of a community than many have felt for a year.
Together, they savored Felix Mendelssohn’s “Fingal’s Cave” from his work, The Hebrides. They applauded Franz Schubert’s 8th Symphony, the “Unfinished.” And they rose, together, to give a spirited ovation to guest soloist Arsentiy Kharitonov for his energetic and emotional performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, backed by the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orc
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I have observed over the years that when institutions like the New York Philharmonic present a world premiere, the work is placed somewhere in the middle of a concert, for the good reason that when it is programmed last, the audience usually bolts for the door.
New “classical” music is not popular in the concert halls. It is, as a rule, incomprehensible and prompts a long, equally incomprehensible explanation in the program notes. One has come to suspect that the composer is not speaking from the heart, not telling the truth, but trying to create a sensation, to shock us, to impress us with his brilliance and originality. The old truism comes to mind that people say many stupid things when their sole motivation is to say something original.