Something I never expected to do in Florence was go to a classical music concert. I’d gone to symphony concerts for 5-6 years in middle school and high school and the thought that I should go to one (or now several) in Florence never even came to my mind. Luckily, it was exactly what Erin was looking for. Erin, a girl from TCU who has a great taste in actually deciding on things, decided to get some of us to go to a chamber orchestra concert with her.
It was held in the church of Orsanmichele, a place with amazing acoustics. It was the real thing. Hearing the horns warming up before the orchestra (Orchestra Da Camera Fiorentina) even came to their chairs was amazing. The tone filled the room: I could feel the horn vibrations on my body. Then they came out. The place held probably around 300 people and was silent. If it wasn’t, we’d have been able to hear it!
They only did four of the five pieces listed on the program. I think the one they left out was a Haydn piano concerto. The cellist they had was good too; it may have just been the acoustics, or he may really have been that good: I couldn’t tell which was the case.
Perhaps it’s the little things that made the performance stand out. It was in the space the pieces were written for. The etiquette for performances crosses cultures (you don’t clap between movements, the string instruments clap the same way (tapping their bows across their hands)). The names of the works in Italian are referenced by “La”, “Re”, and “Fa” maggiore, and not by the D major notation I’m used to. Maybe another little thing that makes all of them fun is that, whether in high school or in Florence, the people I went with were great. They loved the music as much as I did. That might be what makes it stand out most of all.
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