A night at the Proms

Benny surprised me with an early birthday present of tickets to the Proms at Royal Albert Hall. He picked me up from work and after a day of rain the sun was just coming out from behind the clouds. We had a lovely walk through Hyde Park to get to the hall.  It is the world's greatest classical music festival which goes from May - September.  Last night we watched a piece by German composer Mahler. It was quite a dark piece, Symphony number 6, it was filled with so much emotion. It was quite a large orchestra with over 126 members. They had a huge percussion section that had cow bells, and Ben's highlight a wooden sledgehammer hitting a big wooden box in the last movement. It is apparently a very primitive instrument. There was also four harps which sounded beautiful.

It was Ben's first time watching something like this so I think he was pleasantly surprised how much he enjoyed it. He generally has to listen to this music in my Corolla which doesn't do it too much justice. Here is a sample of the concert last night as each show is played live on BBC radio. I do encourage you to have a listen even if it might not be your thing. I warn you there is about 2 minute introduction with some background information to the piece.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013n0g4

Royal Albert Hall was almost full. It is interesting that some people opt to stand to listen to the whole concert which is over 80 minutes. We were sitting up high so we had a great view to observe this beautiful hall. There is a huge range of age groups and people that attend. I just want to go to another one. Benny says he could probably handle one a month. We are going to try and get tickets for the special Christmas event where they play carols. Fingers crossed Emily and her boyfriend Sam will be in London to see it.