A Little Nachtmusik

Last night I decided to head into the center of Brussels. My hotel is out by the airport and all the times I've come here for meetings, I haven't been into town. I perused the "What's On" listings and found a concert of modern chamber music. It's probably not the thing I would normally choose, but I'm always up for a bit of something different.

I'm not a musician, so probably don't appreciate contemporary music for its technical qualities. I'm not able to appreciate how the composer switched from 6/8 time to 7/12 time and then to 3/4 time in the space of 5 measures. But I do think it's cool that modern composers find the most obscure instruments and try to "play"them in unusal ways that experiment with their sounds and qualities. And I can at least appreciate that for one evening.

The first piece, contemporary vocal solo. In German. 'nuf said.

Second was a duet for Alto Flute and Violin. I don't think I've ever heard an alto flute being played. The piece started out with a lot of plucking of violin strings, dragging the bow loosely across strings, and hitting the strings with the bow. The flautist was "spitting" into the flute. Actually it was more lie a dry "THOOT". She also blew straight into the hole - producing very little sounds and drew her breath inward on high pitched whistles. I was left wondering, what is the musical notation for "THOOT" and blow.

The next piece was for trombone and clarinet. It started out with a bunch of long held notes where the clarinet bell was held into the horn of the trombone and creating this interesting resonance. The trombonist had about 6 or 7 different mutes (is that what you call them? mutes). You know, those things that turn a trombone sound from BLAAT into a BWAAH. I never knew there were this many different styles of mute. Again, lots of long held notes using different mutes and experimenting with sounds.

There were a few more pieces with more interesting instruments. A pianist who played standing up so he could pluck the piano strings. A bass oboe and bass clarinet. More vocal solos - this time in French. As I said, I can appreciate something like this purely for the novelty factor. But the audience seemed to be filled with affiionados and in the lobby there was lots of swag and CDs for sale. Alas, my jet lag was overpowering and I felt myself dozing off. So, during the second interlude, I left.

As I left the venue, I spotted a street vendor selling Belgian Frite. My non-existent french got me through ordering "petit frite avec sauce tomate." "Ketchup?" he asked. "Yes, ketchup," I was a little deflated to respond. On the late night train back to my hotel, I checked my calendar for my first meeting of the following day. 6am - agggh - I'd totally forgotten about that conference call. But of course, I'm still jet lagged so 3:30 feels like a lie in to me.

I sure miss having access to things like this. In Milwaukee we're rich for choices on what to do each night. And of course we have Chicago close enough for anything we'd like to do. It's fun to be able to peruse the listings and think, "hmmm, what to do? what to do?"