The performance on Saturday night was too good to pass up when circumstances took me to the Kennedy Center for the second time that day (after the ballet) and the opportunity to hear and see the National Symphony Orchestra again.
At 7 p.m. I found myself stationed at the box office where indeed a last-minute ticket for another performance by the NSO awaited my purchase.
The Saturday presentation was as good as Thursday's, beginning with Ottorino Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances, followed by my favorite composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, whose Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini I listen to now while writing this.
Making the debut in the second part of the program was Alfredo Casella's Symphony No. 2 in C minor, marvelous in every respect with especial adoration of the forces Casella composed, resurrected by conductor Gianandrea Noseda in 2010, the piece long languishing in music archives, according to notes in the program.
For my Saturday Symphony seatmates, neither of whom I knew, I was unable to restrain my enthusiasm and tipped them to the glorious earful which was coming in the second act.
One seatmate said Casella was unknown to him, as I imagine he was to most in the audience.
The other seatmate I may have frightened since she, a Latina, was either scared by my gushiness or may not have spoken English, since she smiled and looked at me in astonishment, never saying a word, but what does it matter when the international language of music speaks to us all?
I know she was not deaf.
Maestro Noseda, 55, and guest artist Francesco Piemontesi, 35, received rapturous applause from audiences both nights, and it was odd, at least to me, that the conductor changed his introductory remarks from Thursday to Saturday, but this was not church, after all, where the preacher repeats his sermon from one service to the next to the next. (Thursday night Maestro talked about the "Italian connection." Saturday night? I have forgotten. It is a shame.)
(For encores demanded by both audiences at the conclusion of Rachmaninoff, Mr. Piemontesi played Clair de Lune on Saturday and a comparatively boring (is this heresy?) Bach (!) on Thursday.)
Given my wont to "explore," at intermission I "chanced" upon what turned out to be a member of the orchestra's technical staff whom I grilled as much as time allowed. The person said it was common for the maestro to make comments which were never the same and no one knew ahead of time what they would be or if he would even talk!
But, smiling the whole time, the technician said Maestro was quite beloved, and "you see, don't you? That I am here listening and not in the back, reading my book like I usually do!"
We marveled at Mr. Noseda's strength and endurance since he holds current leadership posts in London and Israel and Italy and Zurich and Catalonia and Georgia, and we figured he must reside in an airplane.
On Thursday night I sat in the second row (B) and lost, I think, about five pounds just watching Mr. Noseda lead, afraid his baton might go sailing, as I have seen that happen.
But Saturday found me far back in orchestra (row EE), my view of the conductor blocked by the lid of the piano open for Rachmaninoff and Mr. Piemontesi. Not a heavy burden to suffer.
You see what you missed! It pays to get out.
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