A bit more culture.

Last night we went once more to the Teatro Fundación Abanca for their last concert of the current season. The plan was to go out in time to stop off at the Café Rosalía en route to make use of their wifi, check our email, post my blog and sundry other IT related activities. As we walked along Phil mumbled something about checking the time when we got closer to the cafe. This we did: five to seven. After a little hmming and harring Phil recommended we press on towards the concert venue. I pointed out that the concert did not start until eight thirty but he said something about the speed at which we were walking and the amount of time it would take us to get to the theatre and there was no dissuading him. 

Arriving at the venue, he once more asked the time: ten past seven. It had taken us about as long as predicted to get there. The conductor, the Englishman Paul Daniel, and various musicians were sitting on the steps outside. I suggested sitting down too but Phil pooh-poohed the idea and expressed his surprise that the musicians had not yet been allowed in. We walked round the block to kill time but it was still only twenty past seven. Further expressions of surprise ensued. That was when I realised that he had been concentrating on the minutes to and minutes past the hour but had not taken in the hour itself. In his head he was an hour ahead of the rest of us! 

How did that happen? Goodness knows and goodness was not telling! So we went off to the Café Maracaibo on the nearby alameda and did the IT related stuff before the concert, as originally planned! 

When we booked tickets for the concert we had really only noticed that there was some Tchaikovsky and a couple of composers unknown to us. The first was a Scotsman, James MacMillan. The music was something modern, with lots of noisy bits, rather hard to tap your foot to. The soloist, one Esther Viúdez, on the oboe, was very good, quite magnificent in her long red dress, contrasting wonderfully with the sober black and white of the orchestra. I often feel quite sorry for the male musicians in an orchestra, especially in the summertime. The female musicians, still dressed formally in black, can at least have bare arms, giving them relative freedom and comfort as they play. The men, however, must wear a jacket and a bow tie. How hot and stifled they must feel! It's probably better nowadays with modern fabrics but, even so, it's hardly equality! 

The second piece was a concerto for gaita and orchestra. We have to confess to not being the greatest fans of the Galician bagpipes. Had we known in advance, would we still have gone? It's debatable. Anyway, there we were and there it was: a piece by Octavio Vázquez with the gaita played by Cristina Pato, "quizais a mullher que máis internacionalizou a gaita galega", as the programme told us determinedly in Galician. So she has done a lot of good work introducing folk all over the world to the wail of the Galician bagpipes and has even taken the gaita into jazz! Good for her! 

The piece was called "Widows of the Living and the Dead", a reference to the many Galician women left behind when their husbands were lost at sea or went abroad seeking work, sending money home to the family as and when they could. This was the first time the whole piece has been played in concert. Paul Daniel, who introduced the concert in Gallego, doing his bit for promoting local culture! 

As gaita players go she was very good, playing two different instruments, each beautifully decorated with black or cream fringing. She did a lot of swaying to and fro as she played. Two young women sitting next to us were busily swaying on their seats as well, almost ready to stand up and dance by the looks of things. The annoying child sitting behind us stopped kicking the back of Phil's seat and also stopped seeking snacks in his rustly plastic carrier bag; perhaps his father had taken note of the black looks! As the concerto reached its finale and Cristina Pato came on stage to take a third or fourth bow with the conductor and the composer of the music, pulled up on stage from the audience, I pointed out the Phil that her gaitas were still there and that I fully expected an encore. 

I was not wrong. She needed little prompting to take up one set of pipes and launch into some more music making. This time she walked about the stage a little, did a bit of foot stomping and bit of shouting "Hey!". One of the drummers started gently beating out a rhythm on his big bass drum. The other percussionist had something going with the cymbals and most of the string section were moving their fingers as if seeking out the notes. A proper little ceilidh was going on ! 

After the interval the annoying child with his rustly plastic carrier of snacks - from what I could see, a collection of do-nuts and other unhealthy biscuity-cakey stuff, such as is sold on street corners whenever there is a fiesta here - and his father did not return for the Tchaikovsky. Perhaps, good patriotic Galicians, they only came for the gaita music. Perhaps the father was embarrassed at his son's apparent need to eat his way through a concert, thinking that going to a serious music concert is just like going to see a Disney cartoon. The child, by the way, was about eleven and so quite old enough to know how to behave in a concert - in my opinion anyway! 

Oh, and the Tchaikovsky was very good.