Today has two concerts is store. The first was Beethoven’s 1st and I had no idea what else. Scheduled for two hours with an intermission and since the 1st is at most a half an hour there must have been something else. Turns out it was just the 1st preceded by an hour talk/presentation about the 1st. A full hour and I understood 3 words — Beethoven, Hayden, and Mozart. The Cleveland Orchestra used to do something similar with many of their concerts. But you had to go early and they’d have a presentation separate and prior to the performance. In any event the conductor must have done a good job as he got lots of laughs.
After the intermission they did the 1st. Quite good. Small orchestra (a.k.a. a chamber orchestra) maybe 45 musicians or so. As a result it lacked the “punch” that an 80 to 100 person band would have brought. However, it was a small concert hall, maybe 500 seats, so still quite good.
