Classical Immersion

Coming home from work today, I was expressing my stress about work to KS. It's been a tiring week and it promises to get more "exciting" next week with a much dreaded presentation on Monday morning. I hate presenting.

We were on our way to Thai food to celebrate KS' birthday with my family. We over ordered and could not finish our food, which is an unusual thing for us.

I'm digressing. Anyways, we went back to the PJ house to hang out when Ron wanted to show me some DVDs he has. One was a Master Class conducted on Rach 2nd Concerto. This is my first time seeing how a master class is held. How pressuring! How CAN you play with everyone's eyes on you, trying to pick your faults?

The second DVD was all the Strauss compositions conducted by Karajan.

(Side track conversation between Ron and myself:
"Did you know that Karajan came to Malaysia recently?"
"Oh really? When?"
"About 2 to 3 years ago?"
"Karajan died in 1989. What form did he appear in?"
Later I found it was Ashkenazy.)

Back to the Karajan DVD, one piece had a sopranino, who's name I can't remember now, Katherine Someone, such a fantastic voice, another had horses dancing to the music, yet another had ballet incorporated into the piece. My eyes were glued to the tv for the one and the half hours. Poor KS spent the remaining hours of his birthday trying not to fall asleep.

It's been a really long time since I immersed myself in classical music. But as I drove home, I realised how destressed I was! Work could not disturb my bliss. Now I want to burn all Ron's DVDs and watch them the next time I possibly can! Dang, why oh why didn't we buy a DVD burner?