1/13/09

Going to Concerts for Free Is An Outrage!

Oh, what the hell. Let's check in with Mr. Cantrell!

FORT WORTH – If I had paid for a ticket to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra concert Friday evening, I would have been really annoyed.

Yeah, going to concerts for free sucks.

A number of paying customers certainly were grousing at the end of a program that, even counting The Star-Spangled Banner, had lasted all of 50 minutes.

God forbid.

Even allowing for the FWSO's shorter Friday format – an hour and a half, with no intermission – there was time for all three of the pieces promised for Saturday and Sunday repeats.

Um. 2 X 50 minutes is 1 hour and 40 minutes. Math, anyone?

But the Friday audience got only the Brahms Third Symphony and Wagner Tannhäuser Overture, in that quirky order, not the Mozart Prague Symphony.

I don't understand. What about the Prague?

Maybe if we'd been offered a 1/3 discount ...

But...you said...you didn't have to pay for a ticket? 1/3 of zero is zero. More or less. What gives?

6 comments:

Empiricus said...

Let me get this right: the Fort Worth Symphony plays the Star-Spangled Banner before each concert? I suppose I can understand that, but still...

I can't image a good chef who serves the same appetizer for every meal.

AnthonyS said...

I like the Star Spangled Banner before all my concerts, just like I like my friend macaroni and cheese bites before all my meals. That's the 'Merican way.

Anonymous said...

See, I like the other way. Macroni and cheese before my concerts and the Star Spangled Banner before my hamburger helper.

By the way, who goes to see the Forth Wort Symphony anyway? That's a bit of an oxymoron to begin with. They should probably just let anyone in for free who didn't wear the spurs with their cowboy boots.

I know, ouch. Is it wrong to make fun of culturalless DFW? Or just cowboy fashion?

AnthonyS said...

Hey, the Fort Worth Symphony is one of the few that have a composer-in-residence (even rarer among orchestras of comparable size and budget) and an orchestral reading program for emerging composers, FYI.

Danny said...

I thought the line these days were that over-long concerts alienated potential attendees and strained their attention spans. But I guess that's reversed now. I'll update my talking points.

We're still supposed to say that the formal dress alienates the audience, right?

Anonymous said...

Yes, Danny, formal dress is elitism. But nothing alienates the audience more than the music itself. It's all high-and-mighty and intellectual and shit. That offends most people because its exclusionary -- even to those who regularly attend these concerts.

People across the spectrum are equally offended by everything associated with classical music -- liberals hate intellectualism because it makes it exclusive and less diverse (read PC), and conservatives are generally morons.

Harrumph.

Whatever, I do what I want.