Through the Eyes of a Vagrant

Today I woke up at around 2pm and didn’t really feel like getting out of bed since it was the weekend. I got up anyways because there was a Beethoven and Brahms concert that I was planning on attending. Going by the tradition that I have with my friends, when attending an orchestral concert, it is imperative that you wear a suit. So, I put a suit on and spiffied myself up before heading out. I purchased a ticket at the door and headed in. I arrived fairly early so I had my choice of seats. When I had planned on attending, I didn’t really know much about the concert. I just knew the time and date and that it was going to be Beethoven and Brahms. When I entered there was just a piano sitting there so I assumed it was going to be a piano concerto. Once everyone was seated, a half hour after I arrived, a man began speaking. He gave an introduction about Beethoven which lasted a good 45 minutes. I thought it was a little lengthy but it was fairly entertaining, although, many of the people around me were falling asleep. It was difficult to understand because it was entirely in Japanese but I did learn that Beethoven really liked his wine! The man speaking also played a short rendition of “Blue Danube” composed by Johann Strauss on the piano which was very well done. He did it to illustrate some point but I wasn’t sure exactly why. After finally finishing his speech he began playing Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 17 d-moll op.31-2 ‘Tempest’” after taking a large, nervous breath. The piece consisted of two movements. The sonata was not that long which was probably the reason he had spoken so much. It was a difficult piece to play. The sonata was charaterised by notes that would alternate between a very slow tempo followed a by a burst of very fast notes. This sonata was more dissonant then what I was used to listening to from Beethoven and I didn’t really enjoy the first movement so much. He finished to a hearty applause and everyone took a short break. When the break was over, it was time for Brahms. This time a beautiful girl in a long blue dress introduced Brahms to the audience. It was much shorter this time and I learned that Brahms was apparently quite the ladies man. Why he adopted the long white Santa Claus beard later is beyond me. When it came time to play the piece by Brahms the girl brought out her clarinet and the piece was actually a duet. The name of the piece was “Sonata for Piano and Clarinet No. 2 Es-Dur op. 120-2″ which I think I remember having four fairly short movements. I enjoyed this piece a lot. It had a beautiful melody, characterised by call and response with the clarinet leading. The first movement was in a major key and would have made for great background music as opposed to the previous piece by Beethoven. The later movements started to sound a bit sadder as they switched into minor keys and the third movement sounded a lot like it came out of an adventure movie. Both musicians were very skilled and professional. They had practiced a lot and worked well together. After the concert ended, I took a look around and noticed the music teacher from one of my junior high schools there as well as the head of the Board of Education (aka. my biggest boss). I said hi to my boss briefly and headed out.

Shunsuke (piano) and Ikuyo (clarinet) performing in Hana Hall.
(apologies for terrible cell phone photo)

As I left the room, the man playing piano thanked me and I asked him for a programme. He said he had one and he asked me to follow him. It turns out he spoke English really well and most of our conversation was in it! He gave me a programme, his business card, and we chatted a bit. I learned that his name was Shunsuke Inada and that he was studying at a university in Vienna. He was joking that he couldn’t speak English very well anymore because he’s so used to speaking in German now. I was quite impressed that he could speak English, Japanese, and German as well as play the piano perfectly. He said that he had started playing piano from the age of six. I found out his hometown is actually the same as where I’m living now and I told him that I’m an English teacher here. He introduced me to his friends and to my surprise Shunsuke invited me out to a party that they were having. It was close by and when I entered, the mayor and the head of the BOE were there too. His friends and family were also there and it looked like the food was pretty expensive. I chatted it up with everyone there and many of the people were pretty interested in me and where I came from. I ended up meeting the head of international relations in Sapporo, too. Talk about being in high company! Shunsuke’s mother introduced herself to me and said that she owned a soba restaurant nearby, gave me her business card, and asked me to come by sometime. Then Shunsuke’s friends invited me to bowling tomorrow at 3pm. I ate my fill and thanked everyone. When it was time to go, I thanked everyone for inviting me and bid them farewell. I asked them who exactly was paying for it but I never did find out. One thing was for sure though - I didn’t have to pay for anything. I’m pretty sure the meal was more expensive than the admission into the concert!!

So I guess the lesson learned is - when you go to an orcestral concert, wear a suit!