In which we make it to the Bard Music Festival

It
is true that at times I can feel quite selfish.  When faced with the
prospect of giving up many of the concerts and musical events, of not attending
the summer film festivals and plays, I was sad and somewhat petulant.
 Although I always realized that I was quite lucky to have that life, I
had also come to accept it as a part of my definition my place in the
world.  Accepting that this may no
longer be a part of my life therefore has been difficult.

 

Now
I always knew that it would not go on forever.  But knowing something
intellectually and dealing with the reality is not necessarily the same thing.
 Still, over the course of the summer I have come to realize how much the
change in routine upsets G and how much more confused he grows when faced with
new situations or too much information. 

 

That
does not mean that I was not happy that we did indeed manage to make it to part
of the Bard Music Festival this past weekend. In fact, we actually did more
than I had anticipated. And G handled it pretty well.  I believe that listening to the music had a calming effect
that almost overcame the confusion.

 

Friday
night G surprised me by asking to attend the opening night dinner.  Now we have gone for years, but
previous experience has led me to believe that these events are a bit
overwhelming for G right now so I had planned a simple dinner at home.  Indeed the crowd of patrons, closely
pressed together in a small area for cocktails due to the downpour outdoors was
a bit much for G, but he seemed fairly content to stand in a corner with a
drink watching the hullabaloo from a safe distance.  Luckily he was stationed near the door to the kitchen so he
had access to all the tasty hors d’oeuvres that were making the rounds.  He even managed to muster up a
conversation with his neighbor during dinner, fortunately for us a fellow
physician, as his professional knowledge seems to be the one store he can
reliably call up.

 

The
concert was very good, mostly chamber music, all by Prokofiev.  G seemed to relax and enjoy the music,
although he had difficulty following the program.  Because the Bard programs are always long (often over 3
hours) we got home late for G and he went right to bed and slept several hours
before beginning his nightly perambulations and agitations.

 

Saturday
afternoon we went to another concert, this time in a smaller hall, which is
easier for George to navigate.  
I think he slept through various scattered bits, and generally our row
mates were pretty good about just trying to step around or over him as they
tried to get in and out of their seats.   He enjoyed the music very much and occasionally even
commented on how he liked this or that. 
Once again he would have trouble following the program, asking which
piece we had just listened to, or what was being currently performed.  And he would forget who the musicians
were during the brief moments between when they would leave the stage following
a performance and return to take a bow. 
He also had trouble identifying favorite musicians.  For example he has long liked Jeremy
Denk, whom we heard several times Friday and Saturday.  Each time he performed G would ask who
he was and say that he was wonderful and ask why he had never heard him play
before.

 

Many
of the pieces played on Saturday were by Prokofiev’s contemporaries and
teachers, and several of the pieces were interesting perhaps for appreciating
the atmosphere of the time.  The
Prokofiev pieces, as well as the Stravinsky piano works and the Glazunov string
quintet were fabulous.  I realize
that I was only vaguely aware of Prokofiev as a composer of chamber works, with
the exception of works for solo piano, a situation that needs to be corrected
as I was quite entranced by several works performed.

 

Sunday became a rather ambitious day for
us.  We attended the afternoon
concert, to which we were almost late because of torrential downpours.  We got into the concert hall, G made a
pit stop and then I was fretting as I was holding the door open while the usher
was trying to close it to start the concert and G would get distracted by
various bits or things that caught his eye as he crossed the lobby.  I felt if I abandoned my grip on the
door we would be shut out, but I was having trouble keeping G’s attention long enough
for him to cross the room.  We did
get to our seats just as the musicians took their seats.

 

That concert was interesting and lovely,
all woodwind and piano works with a few songs.  I love woodwinds, am particularly fond of the oboe, but have
decided that three hours is a bit too much woodwinds for me.

 

George enjoyed it enough that he wanted to
go to the evening concert, which really looked fascinating to me. The title of
the program was “The Cult of the Child” and there were many lovely and favored
works to be performed including Satie’s Gymonopedies,
Ravel’s Ma Mere l’oye, and
Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf .

 

We did not make it through the entire
concert.  In the first half we
heard the Gymonpedies, which were
absolutely lovely, and Poulenc’s  L’histoire de Babar, le petit elephant.  I adored “Babar”.  The piano played by Lucille Chung was
just wonderful and Michael York did the narration.  It was just charming and fun, bringing back memories of
reading Babar as a child, but was also full of wit and humor to listen to as an
adult. 

 

I had admittedly wanted to attend this
program, partly because I love many of the pieces, and partly because I wanted
to hear Michael York on whom I had a tremendous crush as a teenager.  I did meet him briefly at the dinner on
Friday night, and I knew he was narrating Peter and the Wolf on Sunday.  I had not read the program thoroughly
so was unaware of Babar, much to my surprise and joy since we did not stay for Peter.

Even though we left at the intermission, I was happy to have heard Babar, and
happy to have at least heard part of a concert I would have been sad to
miss.  The concert started at 5:30,
and it was 7 by the time we left at the end of intermission. The day was
already much to long for G.  Had we
stayed I am sure we would not have been out before 8:30 and would not have
eaten until after 9.  As it was G
was in bed by 9, exhausted, allowing me to catch up with the clutter around the
house and watch Mad Men undisturbed, itself a rare pleasure these days.