Every possible scenario that could happen in a bullfight happened. A man got trampled and hurt and the matador did, too (though he just stood right up).  A bull wouldn’t get “mesmorized” by the cape so it couldn’t be killed in the fight and had to be herded off the field by these white with brown spots–he was malo or plain stupid with ADD-like tendencies.  (During this fight–because there are actually 6 within the event, 3 per matador–someone was so frustrated they threw a shoe in the middle, raising more controversy.)  People protested against the fights during a transition period (because half of Spain supports them and the other half thinks it’s low culture or cruel) and were swooped away by the police.  A new matador also won his first ear and paraded around the circumference to wave and blow kisses at his adoring fans who threw fans and hankies that he would retrieve and throw back.  (This honor is granted by the approval of the crowd via standing ovation or waving white hankies. )

Thanks to the help of the Spanish man I sat next to, I was able to understand a lot more. That, and studying the tradition with all its corresponding controversies, made me really appreciate the event. I wasn’t expecting I would like it (it does come with a lot of blood and brutality) and only went because my dad encouraged me to do so, but at the end of the day (well, semester) I would go back.  They are dirt cheap, too, so that’s all the better.  In fact, there are also bullflights in South America that I would love to see when I get down there to hear “good” Spainsh…someday.

I’ve been running into problems with having too high of expectations for events, so I was trying really hard to not get too excited about the Nigel Kennedy (my favorite violinist) concert–especially after the hassle I had to go through to get the tickets (let’s just say they were supposedly sold out before I knew they were even on sale and when I frantically tried to get a ticket, I was turned away for not having a Spanish credit card–the only means of paying). Plus, the ticket was quite expensive and for nearly a fraction of the price I have seen some excellent concerts abroad, so I was feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse. But–thank goodness–I was not let down.  I usually go to a concert for the acoustics, so I come with a book or blank paper to write because the live atmosphere is so stimulating. It might seem weird or even offensive to the players, but I can say that my old viola teacher (who plays for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra) told me that musicians consider it a complement when people fall asleep at their concerts–so I can’t be that bad. Though I was armed with my Spanish textbook, it stayed tucked away in my bag because tonight there was something to see.

The hall itself was interestingly designed with these pop-out risers on the stage and 360-seating. I took advantage of the unique opportunity and sat by the organ in one of the sections on the backwall behind the orchestra. Though it meant I got the back of his head for much of the time, I did get a good view of the orchestra’s open, strappy backs (including a giant shoulder/back tattoo of a second violinist) that in all its unconservative-ness would only be acceptable in Madrid.

Part of the reason I like Kennedy so much is for his unique interpretations of classical music, which tends to be a bit paradoxical because there is supposed to be a “right” and “wrong” in classical music, one way that everyone strives to perform and record. He ignores this tradition completely and makes the music his own creation, leaving his mark with every note. He added accents and swells, put in exuberant vibrato, cut notes off a hair early, and sprinkled little hesitations all around.

It’s the same black notes and scribbles everyone else plays but he does his decorations and techniques slightly–but not too subtly–differently so you know it was stylistically intentional. (At this concert, though, I am pretty sure there were times when he improvised in his own harmonies and may even have wrote ahead of time extra cadenza accompaniment for the orchestra. I swear that was not in the recordings. Can he be playing the same music?)

But how can someone who doesn’t play this canonized way in such a strict field be so revered, you ask? It’s all in the personality, that’s how.

For him, music is fun. When the melody was in the next bar, he might stop for a half-second and put on this mischievous little boy face–the one you wear when you should be getting in trouble for something but know you are going to get away with it–before proceeding. If you are familiar with the song, you will hear the notes going in your head, but the orchestra is silent as if the record player slipped and you are left naked with your mental shower-singing voice. But even if you didn’t know the piece, you would know that something was up and to listen well because music doesn’t just come to a screeching, semi-four truck halt like that. As I see it, he is essentially making classical music more accessible and for today’s people (especially youngin’s like myself who may be turned off to the stuff, though there were hardly any of us in the audience).

It makes sense with all his play in his musical interpretations that he would have a similar personality and it shines through in his gestures. After each piece he shook his fist in the air and rooted for the audience as if we had done all the work. When he played, he gestured and cued with such intimacy it was as if he was with a 100-member quartet. Even without seeing a rehearsal, you could tell that he was like a mentor to the orchestra instead of a dictator. He joked with them (and the audience) so everyone was with high anticipation of what will happen next and he gave lots of enthusiastic thumbs-up. When he walked off the stage while we were applauding, he reached over to unsuspecting orchestra members he passed by to give them knuckle-knocking high fives and would wait until they embarrassingly complied. After the timpanist played his solo opening notes of the second piece, Nigel made a fist and hit his chest to show that the timpanist had just captured his heart. There was something about the principal cellist, too, as he kissed her hand a few times and gave his bouquet to her, too.

He did everything he wasn’t supposed to do. Since it was a concerto concert, he wasn’t supposed to conduct the orchestra at the same time, but he schooched around the would-have-been podium area motioning to the sections and managed to play the first violin parts when he would otherwise have been resting. He wasn’t supposed to wear what looked like black silk PJs and combat boots (one pant leg tucked in) with spiked hair, reminiscent of the punk rock 20-something that he certainly is not. There was no microphone setup on stage because he wasn’t supposed to say anything, but he spoke loudly and slowly to the Spanish audience in his British-English, telling jokes about mind reading (”I bet I can pick three people in the audience and tell you all whether they washed their hair today.”–one was bald). He was supposed to play 2 pieces–not 5–but acknowledged to us before a note was played he knew our tickets were expensive so he didn’t want to “cheat” us.

It was outside the programmed pieces that the “real” music came, though. Conducted like a Jam Session complete with the yelling out of numbers and wandering around the audience and entire stage, he played the gypsy piece Czardas and “the only song written by the famous composer James Marshall Hendrix–it was for the better” Purple Haze for encore pieces. Keeping in line with his humor, he played a romantic little duet with the harpsichordist, had a duel with the concert master while both were playing nearly-screeching high harmonic notes, and sneaked up on a day-dreaming first violinist to dedicate a few juicy notes to her as she jumped in her chair. Though the clarinetist didn’t speak English and had rests for nearly the entire piece, Kennedy asked him while his hands were up to start the song if he was “going to play–there’s some music on your stand there, right?” The poor guy, realizing he was on the spotlight, gave a confused look and rustled around his music while Kennedy grinned and started the piece. To finish off the show, while still shaking their bows on the last chord the entire orchestra just stood up and started walking off stage–cellos included.

With this jolly, cute-old man personality he is enchanting and 100% contagious. So much so that I would want to start drinking just so I could go out and have a drink with him. He made a performance out of the night that was beyond my artificially suppressed expectations. I really don’t know who else would get away with such silly behavior in the un-silly world of classical music.

If you are interested, my favorite CD of his is Classic Kennedy. Unfortunately, I do not think he tours much in the US or else I would highly recommend seeing him. So much for paying tribute to the country that gave him his Juilliard training.

At 7:45 yesterday I was watching a rehearsal for an opera in the plaza in front of Palacio Real (Royal Palace). We were all smushed together against those metal people barriers to get a good view of an empty stage and an interesting sounding band. I knew that they were practicing for a free show later that night at 10pm and apparently so did they (despite my assumptions that they were a bunch of tourists oggling at a spectacle) because all of a sudden there was a signal and the crowd pushed through the metal fences to get to the seats on the other side. I was slightly confused and stood my ground as an observer of the stampede.

Most of the people were crotchety old ladies who ran in and claimed seats with as many items as they could and then began flailing their arms to indicate their location to someone else on the either side of the seating section. They were yelling into their cellphones “Do you see me? I’m the one with the red jacket in the air. Are your seats better than mine?” and then there would be some shuffling around as they realize that they’ve each saved each other seats and can’t possibly occupy both sets. I walked up to one woman whose hand was firmly placed on the two seats next to her to ask to see the show’s pamphlet and she snapped at me “This seat’s taken. It’s taken.” I was just trying to check to see if my facts were right regarding the start time of the opera. Sheesh.

Because we normally have dinner around 10, I knew I wouldn’t be able to see the show so I waited around for a bit, hoping to catch more rehearsing and people watch. I was thinking that most of the people there had just stumbled upon the scene without realizing how early they were, but a woman I started chatting with told me otherwise. “They’re all here for the show. It’s free and outdoors, so of course we’re going to wait. We do it all the time.” Whoa. Who could possibly have 2 hours to sit here doing nothing before a show? I have enough trouble entertaining myself the 10 minutes before previews start at the movies, let alone for hours.

With the nice weather, I accidentally spent three more hours strolling around the plaza and its side streets. The Palace is on my running path, so I always see the stages go up and down for performances and hear the same accordion players. The past few days, though, I caught a snippet of a man playing crystal glasses and have always been bummed that I couldn’t stop myself to listen or have my camera to take pictures. Today I had both time and my camera so I marveled as he played Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and another famous song that I could hum to you but can’t remember the name. While people came and went, I stood in the middle of the sidewalk and stared, a result of which was a gathering of more people wondering what could be so interesting to me. The neatest part was how he could play chords with the glasses and I was impressed how quickly he could roll the notes out, especially without cutting his fingers. My gawking surely earned him a few euros.

I have a few more pictures here.

I had the honor of experiencing Picasso’s great Guernica Friday at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. I haven’t taken any art classes since middle school, so I didn’t have quite the same appreciation and infatuation for the Picasso exhibit as the two other people I went with. (One girl nearly peed her pants from a mix of delight and disbelief of where she was.) It was a good thing, though, that I didn’t have such an extensive background with Picasso or know the controversy surrounding the piece because I could appreciate it all for what it was instead of getting bogged down by all its baggage.

The Guernica part of the exhibit was nicely laid out, showing the development of the piece with all his studies and practice sketches for certain parts. Thanks to x-ray technology, there was also a projection of the Guernica at different points in its construction so you could see how it looked after, say, 10 months, 20 months, etc. to get the full history and thought behind the piece’s progression. Seeing all these ‘doodles’ made him and the painting seem less godly to me because I’ve always had this idea of a painter walking up to a canvas and just working until poof we have Guernica or what-have-you. Even geniuses have to practice!

Now I’m playing a part in this aura surrounding the piece by not addressing the other 3.5 floors of his works in the exhibit. The Reina Sofia has a few other Picassos besides the Guernica, but many are on loan from a Picasso museum in Paris. Overall, the exhibit highlighted how talented he was. He wasn’t just a painter; he also sculpted wood and bronze, made collages/multi-medium pieces, and other ‘objects’ that I don’t quite know how to categorize.

I was a big fan of all the collage and multi-medium pieces just because they have more depth and I guess symbolic meaning to me than a drawing or painting. He had a musical instrument phase, too, so I held up the other two canvas-oriented people I was with while lingering over these. I was pretending that the violins were violas…

The exhibition evoked conversations ranging from what is real art to pondering all the what-if-someone-did…to the Guernica. I’ll let your imagination fill in all the possible profanities we the other two discussed. Although I wouldn’t cut off my leg to own a Picasso (as the friend who was on the verge of crying and peeing her pants the entire time), it was a very neat exhibit. You have to be a genius to represent all angles of an object on a flat plane (pretend you are walking around the object and you will see all those views in his one representation of it) and to include the bare minimum needed to get an emotion across; forget about art representing what you see, it’s about what you feel.

The museum has made a really nice website and you can practically view the whole exhibit online. Of course, these images are nothing like seeing it in person, where the oil paint has its own dimension and the colors are not orange instead of brilliant yellow.

Use the left-to-right scrollbar below the images to see select works from Room 1, Room 2, Room 3, and Room 4. They go in chronological order so you can get a sense of how he developed as an artist. Now I have to go back and see the rest of the Reina Sofia…

See how her face has all the angles represented in it? And her orange-y skin tone was bright, almost Big Bird yellow. I swear!