October 26 Leaving Amsterdam Harbor

Thank goodness tonight Europe goes back on standard time and we get an extra hour of sleep. The program today was full and I’m tired. So I’m picking just one bon bon out of the box of candy to tell you about.

As part of the classical music cruise, tonight we attended a concert at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Built in 1886, this is a relatively new hall with among the best acoustics in the world. It’s a modest sized building, easy to enter and to find your way around. The actual hall is stunning.

The floor is flat for the main seating area, with tiered seats behind the stage and a ring of seats at balcony level. As you can see, arches decorate the walls. You can’t see the names of great composers engraved in the marble just below the arches. Chandeliers provide some of the lighting, and the pipe organ dominates the stage area.

The Nederlands Kamerorkest started with: “Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky” by someone I’d never heard of, Anton Arensky.

This small orchestra didn’t seem to have a conductor, but we had learned at the shipboard preconcert lecture that the concert master was the conductor. He coordinated the young musicians’ playing through eyes, motions and only one wave of his bow. It was a little puzzling to figure out how they could be so tight, and I may have lost some of the flow while trying to figure out logistics. The sound quality was perfect even back in Row 26.

The Cello Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich was the highlight. The Danish soloist, Torleif Thedeen, dramatically carried his cello down the stairs to the right of the orchestra. The 1959 piece was passionate and difficult to pull off, but the soloist’s playing was flawless. One entire movement of the concerto was a cadenza. He got a long standing ovation and played a lovely encore by Pablo Casals called “Song of the “Birds.”

At intermission we found the bar where a handsome young man served complimentary beverages (and cookies of course). We easily found the bathrooms and cloakroom. We walked around admiring the decor and chandeliers and returned to our comfortable red velvet seats. A beautiful piece “Suite Pelleas and Melisande” by Sibelius completed an unforgettable concert evening.