Comparing ticket sales for Messiaen and Brahms

Next week, Ludovic Morlot is conducting Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony as part of the 2012-2013 Masterworks season. Performances are on Thursday, January 31st and Saturday, February 2nd.

Morlot encourages people to attend these concerts and "Listen Boldly" (the tagline of this season), and the first indication that one may have to put some work in in order to enjoy the concert comes from the concert page itself on the Seattle Symphony website. It reads:

"In the first half of the concert, you'll learn about the musical themes and overall context of Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony, paired with remarks by Ludovic Morlot and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, a performance by Cynthia Miller and live musical examples featuring the Seattle Symphony."

So they have to precede the performance with an entire lecture and tutorial on why the piece is great and why we should enjoy it? I'll let that speak for itself.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to compare how this concert is doing up against the concerts featuring Brahms' 4th Symphony that are coming up the following week.

(Note: The third tier is not yet available for purchase for any of these concerts).

The January 31st Messiaen performance has sold 1,679 tickets.

The February 2nd Messiaen performance has sold 1,745 tickets.

The February 7th Brahms performance has sold 1,668 tickets.

The February 9th Brahms performance has sold 1,783 tickets.

However, there is also a Sunday afternoon Brahms performance which has sold 1,729 tickets.

This puts our totals at 3,424 for Messiaen and 5,180 for Brahms. So Brahms sells at about 150% the rate that Messiaen does.

The story doesn't end there though. There is something very interesting in the seating patterns for these concerts that reveals something telling about who is attending them.

Breaking down our statistics further, here are the numbers of seats per each section in the hall that are still available for the five concerts in question:

January 31st Messiaen:

Second Tier: 96 available
Founders Tier: 115 available
Orchestra: 201 available

February 2nd Messiaen:

Second Tier: 95 available
Founders Tier: 126 available
Orchestra: 125 available

February 7th Brahms:

Second Tier: 30 available
Founders Tier: 44 available
Orchestra: 349 available

February 9th Brahms:

Second Tier: 14 available
Founders Tier: 48 available
Orchestra: 246 available

February 10th Brahms:

Second Tier: 15 available
Founders Tier: 51 available
Orchestra: 296 available

The Messiaen performances have a far greater number of seats available in the tiers than the Brahms performances do. And likewise, the Brahms performances have many more seats still available on the floor compared to the Messiaen.

This means that a significant number of people who subscribe in the Founders Tier have exchanged out of the Messiaen concerts, and that a significant percentage of the patronage for the Messiaen comes from people who are buying less expensive seats on the floor of the auditorium. For all the Brahms performances, the Founders Tier boxes are essentially full. The situation is completely different for the Messiaen.

And who is subscribing in the Founders Tier? Who makes up the bulk of these people that have opted not to attend the Messiaen concerts? Donors. People who have influence over programming.

I will sleep peacefully tonight.

January 18th, 2013: SSO Season Announcement + Bach & Telemann

I arrived at Benaroya Hall yesterday afternoon at about 3:15. I had hoped to see a large crowd surging in, piling themselves up against the lobby doors in eager anticipation of the 2013-2014 Seattle Symphony Season announcement. Alas, there were only a few old people milling about the food court area.

I headed for the box office, as I had a number of ticket exchanges and ticket pickups to do there. Then I went and sat at one of the tables near the lobby doors, and waited. A few more people began to gather about in the food area and by the lobby doors over the next ten or twenty minutes, and then they let us into the Grand Lobby. About ten minutes after that, they let us into the main level of Benaroya Hall. I took up residence in seat N-15, which is considered Orchestra A (second in price only to the Founders Tier seats), but as I suspected, and as was confirmed yesterday afternoon, the acoustics are not actually that great in that section of the hall.

The opening number was Fauré's Elegie for cello and orchestra, performed by the amazing Efe Baltacigil in front of a reduced Seattle Symphony, but the sound did not project well to where I was sitting. The orchestra sounded quiet and not very articulated. Baltacigil's playing sounded wonderful, but again, his tone didn't reach my ears with great clarity or projection.

Sitting next to me in seat N-16 was the local composer Greg Bartholomew, whom it was a pleasure to meet. He and I both are not very much into the avant-garde in terms of new music, so we hit a common note.

After the Elegie, Ludovic Morlot took the stage along with the artistic director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society, James Ehnes. Morlot talked about the upcoming season, and I was overcome with excitement as he mentioned Verdi's Requiem, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, the late Mozart symphonies, Brahms' second symphony and other masterworks. He didn't go through the entire season in detail, but he mentioned enough phenomenal music to make me feel like a child in a candy store. He also, unfortunately, mentioned a few of their "outreach-to-the-deliquinet-youth" programs, such as the presence of Sir Mix Alot, which is a tragedy for culture and a triumph for the dictatorship of relativism.

Nevertheless, it seems that the organization is still perfectly aware of the fact that most of their donations come from cultured, intelligent people who want to hear the masterworks from the great composers, and for the most part that is what is delivered in the coming season!

After Morlot and Ehnes left the stage, the Seattle Symphony was joined by the Seattle Youth Symphony on stage to perform the final movement of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony. Due to the size of the orchestra and the nature of the piece, the sound did project pretty well to where I was sitting, though I am not a huge fan of Shostakovich.

As soon as the event was over, I made my way out to the lobby, picked up a 2013-2014 season brochure, and went to the box office to speak with Brent Olsen, the Subscriber Ticket Services Coordinator. Brent knows me as the crazy guy who is obsessed with moving further and further up in the hall, constantly exchanging tickets to get as close as possible to my desired seats. He had suggested that I speak directly with him after the event when I come to subscribe to the new season.

I gave him my very-thought-out list of seating preferences, which simply lists all the seats of the first tier in forty-two sections, so all they have to do is go down the list and give me the first available pair that they can. I then subscribed to the full 21 Saturdays Masterworks series! Brent also printed out for me a bunch of tickets for this season that for some reason had never shown up by mail.

By now it was close enough to the 8:00pm Bach & Telemann concert, that I just stayed around Benaroya Hall, and was joined by my girlfriend around 7:15.

I don't have too much to say about the concert. It was all baroque music. Handel, Rameau, Telemann and Bach. The conductor was Matthew Halls, a young fellow from England, who conducted the orchestra with liveliness and enthusiasm. From seats B-1 and B-2 in the second tier, the sound was crisp, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Our box-mates were slightly annoying though. Not long into the first half of the concert, I had to lean over and shush them, as they were talking to each other and laughing. The nice thing about this despicable phenomenon of talking during concerts is that nobody is doing it to annoy anybody else, or out of spite. They don't have any desire to stand by some supposed right to do it. Hence, when you make it known that their noise is bothering you, they immediately quiet down with no objection. This has been my experience for the most part at least.

The next concert I will attend is on February 9th. Schumann's Piano Concerto and Brahms' 4th Symphony!

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http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/buy/single/production.aspx?id=12370&src=t&dateid=12370

Look at this! This is the "crowd" gathered to hear the season announcement. Pitiful.

January 12th, 2013: Stravinsky, Mendelssohn and Mozart at the Seattle Symphony

Well, it seems that the Seattle Symphony has really made great strides under the leadership of their new music director Ludovic Morlot. I had attended the New Year's Eve concert of Beethoven's 9th with my family at the end of last year, and after last night, any fear that the excellence, vivaciousness, brilliance, clarity and musicality of the orchestra was only due to a festive New Year's Eve mood, has been put to rest.

In both Stravinsky's Suite from Pulcinella and Mozart's 39th Symphony, the orchestra, under the baton of guest conductor Jun Märkl, sizzled with excitement. I am a little near sighted, and I finally bought my first pair of eyeglasses the day before this concert, so the genuine, childlike joy and excitement on Märkl's face was crystal clear to me from where me and my girlfriend sat in seats B-1 and B-2 in the Founder's Tier Boxes.

Märkl led the orchestra with such authentic enthusiasm, seeming to craft expertly nuanced phrases out of the air with his delicate hand motions and inspiring, lively presence. I must say I've had some trepidations about the number of unknown guest conductors visiting the Seattle Symphony this year, but if they are all of Märkl's level, I have nothing to complain about.

I had originally purchased my tickets (Founder's Tier Box B-7 and B-8) on November 20th, but the night before the concert I noticed that B-1 and B-2 had opened up, which are my favorite seats in the hall. At 1:00pm yesterday, when the ticket office phone lines opened, I called in and had my tickets exchanged! So when we arrived at Benaroya Hall at around 7:20, the first thing we did was go exchange my old tickets for the new ones waiting at will call.

Then we went up to the first tier balcony in the lobby to observe the dress code of the crowd milling in the lobby below. It was atrocious. Only once in a while would you see a man in a suit, and women were dressed similarly. While there wasn't a lot of torn or dirty clothes, the dress code of the Seattle audience has essentially been reduced to "nice" day to day clothes. It is brought about by this kind of dictatorship of cultural degradation that we see all around our society today. People say "we don't want to dress nice, so if you want us to buy tickets, don't force us to dress nice" and an organization like the Seattle Symphony has no choice but to bow to the wishes of the rabble.

Why does the audience not desire to dress up? Why do young people come in with misfit, casual clothes, perhaps with their shirt tucked in as a token effort, as if to say "I understand I'm going to the symphony, so I'll tuck in my shirt, but don't bother me any further"?

In any case, after grumbling about cultural decline for a few minutes, we made our way to our seats around 7:40, in time to watch the majority of the audience come shuffling in. It was a well sold show, with at least 85% or 90% of the seats sold I would say, which is a blessing in Seattle.

I had familiarized myself with the Stravinsky a little bit beforehand, listening to it a few times on YouTube, but I think that even if this had been my first hearing of it, I would have been captivated by the excellence of the orchestra. When a piece is executed well, it will hold your attention regardless of how familiar you are with it.

Principal cellist Efe Baltacigil was a joy to watch. He seemed an enlightened being in the orchestra, leading his section with subtle and expressive mastery, communicating with other sections of the ensemble as if these pieces, and this night, were the most exciting moments of his life. The brilliant enthusiasm and involvement of Maestro Märkl complimented Baltacigil's energy in the orchestra, but they were not the only two on stage to exhibit a wonderful sense of presence and excitement. Players throughout the orchestra seemed to be energized, giving me the sense that they are fully aware of how wonderful they sound, and that their orchestra is likely on the rise to a higher stature nationally and internationally.

Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto was a piece I was looking forward to hearing in last night's concert, because while it doesn't have a lot of emotional depth or compositional mastery, it is entertaining, dramatic, and has an abundance of virtuosic passages for the pianist. I had my doubts about HJ Lim's ability to play with any subtlety or emotional depth, but was looking forward to at least being dazzled by a robotic display of technical brilliance. Unfortunately, she couldn't even deliver that. Superficial, pretentious body language attempted to act as substitute for all that was missing in her performance, which included everything musical and emotional, and disappointingly, sometimes the notes themselves. Instead of enjoying the thrilling roller coaster of virtuosic passages in the piece, I found myself cringing and hoping that she'll survive through each one. Whenever it became technically difficult, notes would get muddled, destroying the last modest enjoyment that the performance of an immature, childish musician had the potential of delivering.

Of course she received the typical standing ovation in classic Seattle style. Fast notes + dramatic facial expressions = standing ovation here. She was called back to the stage just a few times before she decided to give an encore. She sat down at the piano, and what followed next was truly ridiculous. She played a solo piano version of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, but it took me a few moments to register what it was that she was playing, because it was about twice the speed that anybody else has ever played it. It was during this piece that my impression of her as immature and childish was solidified in my mind. The speed at which she played it was really like a bad joke.

But the pleasant surprises weren't over yet. After more applause and returning only a couple more times to the stage, she played another encore, which she announced the title of, but I wasn't able to catch it. It was a loud, fast, funny sounding, slightly dissonant piece, which was mildly entertaining at best. I was relieved when the audience finally stopped clapping and intermission commenced.

My girlfriend and I made our way to the Friends Lounge, just off of the first tier balcony in the lobby. Interestingly, they didn't ask me to confirm my donor status before letting us in. There weren't many people in there, and we stood at the railing overlooking the eating area outside the lobby.

The couple sitting with us in the front row of Box B didn't return after intermission, and there were a few other small pockets of empty seats throughout the hall as well. This is fairly common at orchestral concerts where the orchestra by itself is not considered to be that great, and some people come only to hear the soloist featured in the first half. This phenomenon was made even more poignant at this event by the fact that the piece featured in the second half was none other than Mozart's 39th Symphony, a work that is extremely difficult to pull off, and can easily leave the audience bored if not executed with mastery. Mozart is always difficult for an orchestra to play, as it renders everything exposed. Tone quality, intonation, ensemble unity, balance; if anything is off, it is clearly noticeable in Mozart. And on top of that this symphony is the kind of 'black sheep' of his final trilogy of symphonies; the one that does not have an explicit appeal in any way, exercising its brilliance on a much more subtle level than in the 40th and the 41st symphonies. This was a true test for the Seattle Symphony.

From the opening chord of the first movement to the last fleeting gesture of the finale, the orchestra really, truly delivered. Under the inspired guidance of Maestro Märkl, the orchestra executed the only performance of this symphony that I've ever heard that didn't leave me slightly bored and waiting for the end. It was miraculous. The tone quality and togetherness of the violin sections were almost impeccable, the lower strings interactions with them involved and authentic. Märkl and the orchestra put a life in this work that I had never heard before. It absolutely sparkled from beginning to end.

The slow movement, perhaps some of the most difficult and exposed music that an orchestra can play, was delivered with warmth, clarity, and genuine, engaging musicality. And even the Minuet and Trio, containing what is arguably some of the simplest music one can find within the masterworks of a composer like Mozart, succeeded to engage and enthrall me at the highest level.

The finale of the symphony was truly remarkable. Pure joy and excitement reverberated from the stage. Baltacigil looked like a five year old boy on Christmas morning, glancing at the concertmaster eagerly, playing counterpoint to the winds, leading his section with refined boisterousness. The orchestra as a whole seemed to be high on life, and Markl's inspired direction brought the finale to the level of the spiritual. As the movement cascaded through one joyous, excited passage after another, I felt connected to the divine, seeing these people and this orchestra in the context of creation and the entirety of the universe. What are the odds that in the whole sphere of existence, a group of beings such as this would come to be, and be able to make such music together? The light of childlike joy was kindled within me, and I found myself deeply wishing that the movement would never come to an end.

As we left the hall, my desire to attend as many concerts as possible was heightened, and my decision to subscribe to the full twenty-one concert series for 2013-2014 was completely solidified. The Seattle Symphony is definitely on the rise.

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http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/buy/single/production.aspx?id=12319&src=t&dateid=12319

2013-2014 Seattle Symphony Season Announcement!

Today I received an emailing inviting me to attend the official unveiling of the 2013-2014 Seattle Symphony season on January 18th! I'm so excited!!!

The event opens with a performance of Fauré's Élegie for Cello and Orchestra, with Efe Baltacigil (the principal cellist of the Symphony) as the soloist. Then Ludovic Morlot and Executive Director Simon Woods will reveal the 2013-2014 season. And lastly there will be a performance of the final movement of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony, performed by a joint collaboration of the Seattle Symphony and the Seattle Youth Symphony. I was a member of SYSO for the 2009-2010 season, so I always love seeing them perform!

Afterwards there will be 2013-2014 season brochures available! I wonder if I'll be able to subscribe to the season immediately at that point. I hope so!

Introduction

In this blog I will be recounting my experiences at the concerts I attend in Seattle, which will be mostly at the Seattle Symphony, with a few Seattle Opera performances mixed in from time to time. My posts will be sort of like concert reviews, but will also include details about my experience that have nothing to do with the quality of the performance.

So far I have tickets for ten SSO concerts between now and June, as well as tickets for La Bohème at the opera in March, and for the Ring cycle in August.

The concert I'm most excited about is probably Hilary Hahn performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto on April 27th. I continue to watch the seating map on the SSO website, waiting for better seats to open up so I can exchange my tickets for them. I've already once exchanged the initial tickets I bought for a superior pair that opened up this last week!

I'm also anticipating the announcement of the 2013/2014 season at the Symphony, and trying to decide whether I should subscribe for the 7, 13 or 21 concert Masterworks series. This will be the first season that I am a subscriber of the Masterworks series. And of course I'm also anticipating the pending announcements from the Seattle Opera, but I probably won't be subscribing there because I've gotten the impression that it's difficult to obtain a subscription in Dress Circle Preferred, and there are usually tickets available there at some point before each performance.

This Saturday I will be hearing HJ Lim performing Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, with Jun Märkl conducting. The program opens with Stravinsky's Suite from Pulcinella, and closes with Mozart's 39th Symphony. Stay tuned!

Photo by Seph Parshall